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Nugent,  George  Nugent  GrenvilIe,i:cbaron  ,{^dl789  1850. 

A  plain  statement  in  support  of  the  political  claims  of  the  Roman  Cath 
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MfiNUFfiCTURED   TO   flllM   STflNDfiRDS 
BY   fiPPLIED   IMRGE,     INC. 


/ 


^ 


No.2 


A   PLAIN    STATEMENT 


IN    SUPPORT   OF    THE 


POLITICAL  CLAIMS 


OF 


THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS; 


IN    A    LETTER 


TO  THE  REV.  SIR  GEORGE  LEE,  BART. 


BY 


LORD  NUGENT, 


MEMBER  OF  PABUAMENT  FOR  AYLESBURY. 


I 


I;     '1 


LONDON: 

PRINTED    FOR 

T.  HOOKHAM,  OLD  BOND  STREET. 

M.DCCC.XXVL 


.J.!^ 


Mi 


PLAIN    STATEMENT, 


Sfc. 


MY    DEAR    SIR    GEORGE, 


m;; 


l*rinled  by  J.  and  C.  AUlard, 
liaitholomew  Close. 


Some  of  my  Electors  have  desired  rae  to  put 
through  another  edition,  a  Letter,  which  I  ad- 
dressed to  them  in  1820,  on  the  Catholic  Question. 
To  any  such  desire,  so  expressed,  I  am  bound  to 
attend  ;  holding,  as  I  do,  from  them  and  from  you 
all  the  means  I  possess,  or  am  ever  likely  to 
possess,  of  giving  the  support  of  a  vote  to  any 
measure  of  public  concern.  At  the  same  time,  I 
know  that  it  is  not  their  wish  that  I  should  be 
called  upon  to  repeat,  in  a  form  which  would  in 
some  respects  be  disagreeable  to  me,  mere  opinions, 
the  repetition  of  which,  if  it  would  be  irksome  to 
myself,  I  may  well  conckide  would  be  much  more 
so  to  others.  On  looking  at  that  publication, 
which  is  little  rnore  than  a  very  hasty  vindication 
of  the  course  which  I  early  adopted,  and  have 
always  maintained,  on  the  subject  of  the  Catholic 
Claims,  I   see  many  reasons  for  wishing  to  put 

a2 


J* 


into  a  different  shape  whatever  parts  of  it  our 
friends  may  think  worth  being  repubHshed  at  this 
time.  I  find,  it  is  true,  no  opinions  advanced  in 
it  by  which  I  am  not  still  very  wilHng  that  my  con- 
duct should  be  regulated  and  judged  ;  but  I  find 
many  things  done  carelessly,  at  least  done  in  a 
manner  which  I  may  be  allowed,  after  six  years, 
to  think  might  be  better  for  reconsideration.  But, 
my  dear  Sir  George,  I  will  confess  that  I  have 
another  motive  for  wishing  to  alter  the  form  of  that 
Letter,  and  address  my  Constituents  through  you. 
It  is  not  on  account  of  your  profession  as  a  clergy- 
man, because,  in  my  judgment,  clergymen  have, 
as  such,  no  business  with  this  or  any  other  purely 
political  question  ;  nor  is  it  only  on  account  of  the 
entire  coincidence  of  opinion  which  I  am  happy  to 
believe  exists  between  us  on  every  matter  of  pub- 
lic importance.  It  is  because,  recommended  by 
you  to  the  notice  of  those  who  have  elected  me 
to  Parliament,  I  am  accountable  to  you,  among 
the  first  of  that  body,  for  my  opinions,  and  for  the 
grounds  on  which  they  have  been  formed ;  and  be- 
cause, if  I  wished  to  put  them  on  record  with  my 
Constituents,  for  the  first  time  or  the  last,  there 
is  no  man  under  whose  patronage  and  sponsor- 
ship I  should  be  prouder  to  place  them  than 
yourself. 

The  public  and  private  regards  of  my  Electors 
have  been  proved  towards  me  in  a  manner  calcu- 
lated to  more  than  satisfy  the  proudest  feelings 


V'ft.-. 


5 

of  a  man  jealous  of  their  esteem.  But  I  am  not 
satisfied  with  this  alone.  Invested  with  a  public 
trust,  when  I  find  my  conduct  or  opinions  misre- 
presented before  any  portion  of  the  body  which  has 
conferred  it,  I  vvjll  do  justice  to  both  by  fairly 
stating,  as  1  conceive  it,  the  question  at  issue. 
And  this  must  be  my  apology,  if,  in  some  passages 
adopting  the  very  words  of  ray  former  Letter,  I 
may  seem  to  address  you  in  a  language  of  remon- 
strance, or  to  confound  you  with  such  as  I  believe 
are  inadequately  informed  on  a  subject  on  which 
the  liberality  of  your  sentiments  proceeds  not  only 
from  a  love  of  truth  and  freedom,  but  from  full  and 
familiar  acquaintance  with  the  different  bearings 
of  the  great  Question  at  issue. 

It  is  unfair  towards  the  cause  of  Catholic 
Emancipation  that  it  should  be  represented,  as  it  so 
often  is  by  both  opponents  and  supporters,  as  a 
matter  exhausted  in  argument.  Whatever  it  may 
have  gained  or  lost  by  the  mode  in  which  it  has 
been  treated,  and  however  trite  the  case  may  have 
become,  viewed  as  one  of  mere  Justice, — consi- 
dered as  one  of  Policy,  the  arguments  in  its  behalf 
vary  year  after  year,  as  they  accumulate  in  amount 
and  rise  in  importance  and  urgency.  As  far  as 
relates  to  mere  Justice,  our  case  may  be  said  to  be 
closed,  and  must  now  be  left  to  the  silent  but  sure 
prevalence  of  right  over  violence  and  clamour,  over 
the  dishonest  arts  of  some  Protestants,  and  the 
natural    prejudices   of  all.     It  is  enough  for  that 


6 

part  of  the  case  if  it  can  be  shewn  that  a  certain 
class  of  our  fellow  subjects  are  suffering  penalties  on 
account  of  opinions  which  have  no  apparent  in- 
fluence on  their  conduct  in  the  state.  If  the 
enjoyment  of  certain  common-law  privileges  be 
the  general  Rule  of  the  English  Constitution,  and 
partial  incapacitation  be  to  be  considered  as  the 
Exception,  (which  position  will  not,  I  apprehend, 
be  denied  at  least  by  those  who  are  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  them,)  I  would  only  submit  that  we 
Protestants  are  bound  to  justify  the  Exception, 
before  the  Roman  Catholics  can  be  called  upon 
to  make  out  their  title  under  the  general  Rule.  I 
submit  that  we  Protestants  are  bound  to  shew 
that  the  offence  and  the  danger  for  which  the 
Roman  Catholics  were  first  excluded  remain,  and 
remain  undiminished.  For  such  exceptions  to  be 
just  must  be  absolutely  necessary ;  to  be  useful, 
they  must  be  entirely  just.  I  may  assume,  then, 
that  unless  a  case  can  be  established  on  which,  if 
these  exclusive  laws  had  never  been  enacted,  it 
would  be  necessary  now  for  the  first  time  to  enact 
them,  the  argument  is  closed,  and  in  justice  and 
right  the  cause  of  Roman  Catholic  Emancipa- 
tion is  won. 

But  the  friends  of  the  measure  may,  I  think, 
safely  leave  this  vantage  ground,  and  take  the 
proof  upon  themselves.  1  think  it  can  be 
shewn,  that  neither  from  remote  history,  if  re- 
mote history  could   afford   any  just   ground    for 


penal    enactment,    nor    from    recent    example, 
can    any  case   be   made   out   for  these   disabili- 
ties;    but  that   the    whole    evidence   of    history 
and  example  is  the  other  way.     I  think  it  can  be 
shown  that  the  principles  of  the  English  Constitu- 
tion, and  particularly  those  declared  at  the  Revo- 
lution,  are  not  favourable  to  the  continuance  of 
these  disabilities,  but  the  direct  opposite.     That 
he  who  quotes  against  the  Catholic  Claims  the 
principles  then  declared,  has  fallen  into  what  Mr. 
Burke,   in  a  tract  which  in  my  opinion  contains 
the  whole  spirit  of  this  great  Question,   so  well 
exposes  as  the  vulgar  fallacy  of  **  confounding   in 
his  mind  all  that  was  done  at  the  Revolution  with 
the  principles  of  the  Revolution;''^  and  that  he 
who  describes  the  English  Constitution  as  a  code 
essentially  of  exclusions  defames  that  Constitution, 
and  is  ignorant  of  the  first  principles  on  v/hich  it 
rests.     I  think  it  can  be  shewn  that,  even  grant- 
ing  the   charges   of  religious    error   against  the 
Roman   Catholics    not  to  be  exaggerated,  these 
have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the  Question  ;  that 
our  charges  against  them   of  civil  intolerance  are 
for  the    most    part  untrue,  and   might   be    more 
colourably  charged  against  ourselves  ;  and  that  all 
that  are  truly  chargeable  against  them  are  equally 
so  against  us.     That,   even  putting  out  of  con- 
sideration all  claim   founded  on  moral  right,  ws 


*  Letter  to  Sir  Hercules  Laiigrishe. 


8 

are  bound  to  repair  the  wrong  we  are  doing  them, 
were  it  only  by  reason  of  the  extreme  hazard  of 
persisting  in  it;  and,  lastly,  I  think  it  may  be 
shewn  that  we  are  bound  to  do  so  by  solemn 
pledges,  which  nothing  but  superior  power,  and 
clamour  which  confounds  both  fact  and  argument, 
have  enabled  us  hitherto  dishonestly  and  shame- 
fully to  violate.  It  would  be  necessary  for  those 
who  are  disposed  to  go  through  these  proposi- 
tions, to  bear  with  a  few  facts  and  arguments  often 
before  adduced.  But  this  is  not  our  fault ;  for,  if 
our  opponents  hold  a  number  of  opinions,  venera- 
ble, as  the  saying  is,  from  their  antiquity,  there 
are  likewise  a  few  facts  and  aro:uments  on  our 
side,  not  claiming,  like  those  opinions  of  our  adver- 
saries, to  be  held  venerable  for  their  antiquity,  but 
only  to  be  received  as  sound  in  spite  of  their 
antiquity.  It  is  not  our  fault  if  in  their  old  age 
these  must  sometimes  be  brought  to  take  the  field  ; 
I  wish  they  had  prevailed  in  their  youth,  and  had 
accordingly  been  entitled  to  an  honourable  and 
lasting  repose.     But  we  cannot  do  without  them. 

I  believe  that  there  are  few  subjects  on  which 
so  many  opponents  are  to  be  met  with  of  that  very 
numerous  class  who  think  themselves  justified  in 
feeling  strongly  without  enquiring  deeply,  who 
acquiesce  in  unexamined  statements  merely  to 
fortify  their  own  preconceived  sense  of  the  case, 
and  who  are  ever  recurring  to  defences  a  thousand 
times  overthrown,  and  now,  by  universal  consent 


\(i 


I 


!f 


9 

of  all  well  informed  persons,  abandoned,  merely 
because  the  fact  of  the  discomfiture  and  surrender 
may  have  escaped  their  not  very  extensive  research, 
or  may  have  lost  its  place  in  their  not  very  im- 
partial memory.      This    is   a    serious    diflSculty, 
because  with  such  persons  it  is  not  easv  to  deter- 
mme  at  what  precise  period  of  the  controversy  to 
begin.      There    is,   however,  another  class  with 
whom  it  is  impossible  to  deal :  the  mere  shouters 
of  ''No  Popery;"  those  who,  without  the  desire 
of  enquiry  or  the  capacity  of  reasoning,  think  that 
they  see  their  interest  or  their  honour  bound  up 
in  a  determination  never  to  doubt  any  early,  or 
accidental,  or  careless,   impressions,  to  which  by 
habit  they  consider  themselves    pledged.      Such 
we  can  only  leave  to  rejoice  in  their  own  conclu- 
sions, unquestioned  and  undisturbed,  vvithdravvino- 
ourselves  from  all  dispute  with  them  as  we  should 
from  the  attempt  to  go  through  a  proposition  in 
mathematics  with  a  person  to  whom  the  admission 
of  an  axiom  appears  to  be  matter  of  too  hazardous 
generosity,  and  who  accordingly,  while  expressing 
his  readiness  to  listen  to  proof,  feels  that  he  owes 
it  to  his  cause  to   refuse  every  preliminary  con- 
cession on  which  a  proof  can  by  possibility  turn. 
Until  they  shall  have  done  what  they  never  will  do, 
— until  they  shall  have  enlightened  themselves  on 
the  history,  not  of  their  own  country   onlv,   but 
of   some   other   parts  of  modern   Europe, — until 
they  shall  have  learned  what  the  penal  laws  were, 


1 

f 


10 

and  what  they  are  now, — until  they  shall  know 
the  story  and  condition  of  the  Roman  Catholics 
in  this  empire,  and  of  Protestants  in  others, — they 
must  be  content  to  be  challenged  as  Jurors  to 
pass  upon  this  Question.  Nay,  more, — they  must, 
till  then,  absolutely  abstain  from  all  customary 
expressions  of  vituperation  against  the  Papists,  on 
pain  of  convicting  themselves  of  possessing  less 
than  they  ought  of  common  honesty,  or  less  than 
most  men  would  be  thought  to  possess  of  common 
discretion. 

Never,  probably,  of  late  years  has  there  been 
any  other  topic,  on  some  most  material  points  of 
which  (although  for  near  half  a  century  so  much 
discussed    and  so  deeply  felt,  and  although   the 
prevailing  sentiment  of  the  country  upon  it  has 
of  late  so  much,  as  you  and  1  should  term  it,  im- 
proved,) so  little  is  even  yet  generally  understood. 
First,   as  to  what  the  constitutional  advantages 
are  of  which  our  Roman  Catholic  countrymen  are 
actually  deprived ;  and,  secondly,  as  to  what  are 
the   particulars  in  which  it  is  the  object  of  the 
friends,  as  they  are  called,  of  the  Roman  Catholics, 
to   liken  their   condition    to   that  of  others    who 
differ,  some  quite  as  widely,  from  the  Established 
Church  of  England  and  Ireland.     The  first  obvious 
and  wide  distinction  between  the  political  condition 
of  the  Roman  Catholics  and  that  of  the  Protestant 
dissenters  is  this.    The  disqualifying  laws  against 
the  Protestant  dissenters  have,  by  the  wisdom  of 


/ 


11 

Parliament  and  the  necessity  of  the  case,  been  ren- 
dered of  no  effect;  while  the  Roman  Catholics  are 
practically  disqualified,  tvithout  even  the  pretext  of 
any  political  tenet  being  urged  against  them,  and 
on  account  only  of  speculative  doctrines  of  a  purely 
spiritual  nature.     Now,  the  latter  part  of  this  I 
am  aware  Lord  Liverpool  denies;  but  am  I  not 
justified  in  so  stating  it?     Surely  I  am,  if  I  find 
these  spiritual  doctrines  made  the  only  instruments 
of  their  disfranchisement.    The  Roman  Catholics 
implore  you  to  substitute  vvhat  civil  tests  you  will, 
to  satisfy  yourselves  of  their  allegiance  ;  and  they 
declare  their  readiness  to  subscribe  to  them.     You 
answer  them  with  an  enquiry  on  oath,  not  as  to 
how  they  stand  affected  towards  the  Constitution  of 
the  realm,  but  as  to  how  they  believe  of  the  essence 
of  a   Sacrament    and    the  mediation    of   Saints. 
Your   Test  is   not    one   to   ascertain    whether   a 
Catholic  can  be  a  good  subject,  but  to  ascertain 
whether  a  man  be  a  Catholic  in  his  spiritual  creed, 
assuming  that  one  who  is  a  Catholic  in  his  spiritual 
creed   cannot  be  a  good  subject. 

Then  your  real  objection  must  be  held  to  centre 
in  the  doctrines  of  this  spiritual  creed  ;  for,  if  not, 
even  though  you  should  establish  a  just  cause  for 
excluding  those  who  profess  it,  you  would  still 
convict  yourselves  of  doing  so  on  false  pretences. 
If  you  must  punish,  let  the  indictment  at  least 
set  forth  the  offence  which,  according  to  your 
opinion,  deserves  the  punishment. 


'  ip|Hi. 


12 

The   Test    and    Corporation    Acts    disqualify 
Protestant   dissenters.      I  think  the  absurdity  of 
those  acts  about  equal  to  their  injustice  ;  and  so 
thinks  the  Parliament ;  and  therefore  it  annually 
passes  an  Indemnity  Bill,  which,  though  nominally 
but  an  annual  Bill,   knows  no  end,  and  has  been 
for  more  than  a  century  as  essentially  and  per- 
manently   a   law    on     behalf  of    the    Protestant 
Dissenters,  as  has  been  the  annual  Mutiny  Bill  on 
behalf  of  the  Crown  and  its  army.     Under  it  all 
persons   find    shelter  who,    having    neglected    or 
scrupled   to    qualify   for    office    by   receiving  the 
Sacrament  according  to  the  forms  of  the  Church 
of  England,   have   become   liable  to   heavy  disa- 
bilities and  fine.     Thus  in  practice  and  eifect  the 
good  sense  of  the  Legislature,  by  interposing  this 
shield,   renders  the  Protestant  Disseiiters  eligible 
to  all  civil  oflSces   under  the  Crown  ;  thereby  en- 
gaging many  an  honest  and  able  servant  to  the 
State,  and  withdrawing  from  these  public  honours 
the  foul  imputation  that  they  may  be  purchased 
by  the  abandonment  of  a  conscientious   scruple, 
aggravated  by  the  proflination  of  a  holy  rite.    From 
Parliament  they  are  not,  and  never  were,  excluded. 
But  the  Roman  Catholic  is  deprived  of  all  these  ad- 
vantages, absolutely  and  literally  ;   and,  if  the  dis- 
qualifying oaths  speak  truth,  not  because  he  fails 
in  his  duty  as  a  subject,  not  because  his  sense 
of  duty  is  even  suspected,  but  because  he  invokes 
the  intercession  of  Saiiits,   because  he  recoirnises 


.si*-  J 


18 

the  Pope  in  spiritualities,  and  because  he  believes 
in  the  "  real  corporeal  presence"  (and  not  as  the 
Church  of  England  does,  only  in  *'  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ,  verily  and  indeed  received,")  in 
the  elements  of  the  Last  Supper.* 

It  has  always  appeared  to  me  that,  of  all  men, 
Protestant  dissenters  ought  to  be  the  last  to  object 
to  Catholic  Emancipation  ;  for  religious  liberty  is 
either  an  universal  principle  or  no  principle  at  all ; 
nor  can  it  with  justice  be  extended  to  certain  sects, 
and  withheld  from  others.  I  need  hardly  say,  then, 
how  cheerfully  I  would  vote,  as  I  have  voted,  for 
the  repeal  of  the  Test  and  Corporation  Acts,  but 
only  for  the  reasons  which  would  equally  move  me 
to  vote  for  the  repeal  of  all  the  other  laws  that 
disqualify  the  Roman  Catholics. 

It  is  said  that  the  Roman  Catholics  '^ enjoy 
perfect  toleration,  because  they  are  permitted  to 
worship  God  in  the  manner  the  most  agreeable  to 
the  dictates  of  their  own  conscience."  I  should 
admit  that  this  is  '*  perfect  toleration,"  could  we 
conclude  the  sentence  thus,  '^  without  thereby  in- 
curring penalty  or  privation."  But  here  lies  the 
whole  matter  of  complaint.  A  man  is  clearly  not 
left  free  to  do  that  which  if  done  subjects  him  to 
punishment.  The  CathoHcs,  then,  are  not  free 
to  exercise  their  religion.  No  syllogism,  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  can  be  clearer  than  this. 

*  Catechism  of  the  Church  of  England. 


14 


15 


But  let  us  not  be  mistaken.  It  is  not  toleration 
only  that  we  ask  for  the  Roman  Catholics  and  for 
Protestant  Dissenters :  we  ask  liberty.  The  very 
term  toleration  implies  that  you  possess  a  power 
which  no  human  creature  ought  to  claim  over  the 
mode  in  which  another  worships  that  Being,  *'in 
whom,"  according  to  the  words  of  the  Church  of 
England  Liturgy,  than  which  man  never  devised 
better,  "in  whom  standeth  our  eternal  life,"  and 
"  whose  service  is  perfect  freedom.*'  Toleration  is 
but  as  a  scabbard  to  cloathe  the  sword  of  perse- 
cution :  whilst  it  covers  the  keenness  of  the  edge, 
it  preserves  for  use  the  weapon  within,  and  retains 
its  form.  That  weapon  it  is  which  a  government, 
conforming  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity  or  of 
Liberty,  must  cast  away  and  renounce  for  ever. 

We  are  told  that  the  relieving  the  Roman 
Catholics  from  the  penalties  and  privations  which, 
by  being  Roman  Catholics,  they  now  incur,  would 
be  the  giving  them  political  power.  Now  this 
is  not  so:  there  can  hardly  be  a  grosser  misuse  of 
terms,  or  mistake  in  reality,  than  to  confound 
Power  with  Privilege.  Privilege  is  not  Power :  it 
is  protection  from  Power.  What  the  Church  of 
England  possesses,  and  what  the  opponents  of 
religious  liberty  would  retain,  is  exclusive  Power. 
What  we  desire  for  dissenters,  Protestant  and 
Catholic,  is  community  of  Privilege.  Mere  eligi- 
bility to  civil  office  is  not  Power ;  it  is  Privilege. 
Mere  eligribilitv  to  Parliament  is  not  Power  ;  it  is 

1 


J 


Privilege.  Privilege  is  what  belongs  to  a  member 
of  the  State ;  Power  is  what  belongs  to  the  State 
itself.  These  two  things,  as  Mr.  Burke  expresses 
it,  ''I  conceive  to  be  as  different  as  a  part  is  from 
the  whole,  that  is,  just  as  different  as  po<^sihle."* 
But  we  are  sometimes  told  that,  to  give  full  effect 
to  our  principle,  the  Throne  itself  must  be  left  open 
to  them,  or  that  we  are  inconsistent.  This  is 
by  no  means  a  necessary  consequence,  nor  has  it 
the  remotest  connexion  with  the  premises.  I 
might  admit  the  Roman  Catholic  to  all  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  all  other  British  subjects^  and 
might  continue  to  exclude  him  from  the  Throne; 
and  yet  I  think  I  could  shew  that  I  am  not  incon- 
sistent in  principle.  We  have  a  right  to  confer 
Sovereignty,  or  any  other  trust,  on  what  terms 
we  please:  we  have  no  right  to  deprive  of  a 
franchise  but  for  some  proved  crime.  The  Act  of 
Settlement  provides  that  the  Crown  shall  descend 
to  the  heirs  general  of  a  certain  line  being  Protes- 
tants. The  King  of  England  is  supreme  head  of 
the  Church  :  the  Church  of  England  is  Protestant. 
I  think  it  would  be  an  inconsistency  to  place  a 
Roman  Catholic  sovereign  at  the  head  of  a  Protes- 
tant Church.  But,  again,  is  eligibility  to  the 
Throne  among  the  ''rights  and  privileges  of  other 
British  subjects?''    While  there  is  such  a  thing  as 

*  Letter  to  Sir  Hercules  Langrishe. 


\ 


16 

constructive  treason,  I    will    not   say    so    within 
hearing  of  His  Majesty's  Attorney  General. 

But,  with  respect  to  the  dangers  to  be  apprehended 
from  their  eligibility  to  office  and  representation. 
Parliament,  I  have  heard  it  said,  might  be  filled 
with  Catholics ;  all  places  of  trust  and  honour 
might  be  filled  with  Catholics ;  and  England 
might  by  degrees  become  again  a  Catholic  country. 
Indeed ! — If  the  House  of  Commons  were  to  be 
filled  with  Catholics,  whose  fault  would  it  be  ?  The 
fault  of  the  electors.  I  have  known  the  having 
voted  for  the  Catholics  urged  with  some  success 
as  an  objection  to  a  candidate  at  an  election.  I  do 
not  think  that  the  being  a  Catholic  would  in  many 
places  be  a  successful  recommendation  of  one. 
What  power  is  it  apprehended  is  to  deprive  the 
people,  after  Catholic  Emancipation  shall  have 
passed,  of  the  means  of  returning  Protestants  to 
the  House  of  Commons  if  they  choose  it?  And  if 
any  where  the  people  should  prefer  the  electing  a 
Catholic,  I  only  ask  a  free  choice  for  the  people. 
But  it  appears  to  me  that  the  answer  to  the  whole 
objection  is  simpler  yet.  A  religion  can  prevail  in 
a  State  only  from  one  or  more  of  these  three  causes, 
— its  own  intrinsic  truth  and  excellence,  or  the 
property  and  talents  of  its  professors,  or  a  si- 
multaneous inclination  and  consent  of  the  majority 
of  the  people.  If,  then,  we  say  that  by  the  removal 
of  the  present  restrictive  laws,  the  Roman  Catholic 


17 

Religion  would,  in  any  natural,  or   probable,  or 
even  possible,  event,  ultimately  prevail,   we  must 
admit  that  oiir  alarms  are  founded  on  one  at  least 
of  these  three  premises  ;  either  that  we  are  now 
by  penal  power  oppressing  the  cause  of  Truth  ;  or 
that  we  are  excluding  the  majority  of  the  property 
and   talents  of  our  country  ;  or  that  we  are  coun- 
teracting the  general  wish  of  the  people.     Now, 
in  fact,  I  do  not  believe,  nor  would  our  antagonists 
admit,  any  one  of  these  positions  ;  and  therefore  I 
do  not  apprehend  the  prevalence  of  the   Roman 
Catholic  religion.  Indeed,  it  is  a  supposition  which 
I  should   reluctantly  adopt,    because  insulting  to 
Protestantism  itself,  that  there  is  any  danger  that  a 
form  of  Church  Government,  which  the  spirit  and 
energy  of  the  people  overthrew  at  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  should  be  re-established  by 
common  consent  in  the  nineteenth.     It  would,  in 
other  w^ords,  be  to  suppose  that  the  advances  of  ci- 
vilization, learning,  and  liberty,  have  impaired  the 
popularity,  and   therefore  endangered  the  security 
of  the  Protestant  faith.     When  we  argue  the  right 
to   exclude  the   Roman    Catholics,    we  represent 
them   as  a  contemptible  Minority ;  but  when  we 
ar^rue  the  danoer  of  admitting  them,  we  suppose 
them  a  formidable  Majority.     Both  cannot  be  true. 
But  then  it  is  said,  ''What  is  now  a  minority, 
contemptible  for  the  smallness  of  its  numbers,  and 
contemptible  for  the  bigotry  and  folly  of  its  pro- 
fessors, may  in  process  of  time  become  a  majority." 


\ 


18 

No  high  compliment  this  to  the  zeal,  talents,  virtue, 
or  popularity,  of  the  Established  Church. 

"If,  then,"  says  a  Minister  of  our  own  Church, 
the  Rev.  John  Fisher,  rector  of  Wavenden,  in 
this  county,  in  a  sermon  published  some  years  ago, 
and  entitled,  "  The  Utility  of  the  Church  Estab- 
lishment, and  its  Safety  consistent  with  Religious 
Freedom,"*  *'If,  then,  the  Protestant  religion 
"could  have  originally  worked  its  way  in  this 
"  country  against  numbers,  prejudices,  bigotry, 
"  and  interest ;  if,  in  times  of  its  infancy,  the  power 
"  of  the  Prince  could  not  prevail  against  it ;  surely, 
"  when  confirmed  by  age,  and  rooted  in  the  affec- 
"  tions  of  the  people, — when  invested  with  authority, 
"  and  in  full  enjoyment  of  wealth  and  power, — when 
"  cherished  by  a  Sovereign  who  holds  his  very 
"throne  by  this  sacred  tenure,  and  whose  con- 
"  scientious  attachment  to  it  well  warrants  the  title 
"  of  Defender  of  the  Faith,— surely  any  attack  upon 
"  it  must  be  contemptible,  any  alarm  of  danger 
"  must  be  imaginary." 

Well  do  I  remember  the  warm  and  lasting 
impression  in  favour  of  religious  freedom  made 
upon  my  boyish  mind  by  that  excellent  discourse 
preached  at  Buckingham  m  1807,  and  then  pub- 
lished and  presented  to  my  father  by  its  eloquent 
author  ;  and  happy  do  I  esteem  myself  that  a  copy 
of  it  is  still  retained  by  me  ;  and  happier  still  should 


*  Sermon  of  Ihc  Rev.  J.  l-isber,  page  14. 


19 

I  be  if  any  persuasions  of  mine  could   induce  that 
Reverend  Gentleman  to  re-publish,  in  times  when 
the  avowal    of  such   sentiments  comes  from  our 
clergy  with  peculiar  grace,  a  Sermon    so  full  of 
Christian  unction,  of  social  charity,  and  political 
wisdom.      But   I  said  at  the   beginning  that  in 
my  judgement  clergymen  as  such  had  nothing  to  do 
with  a  purely  political  question  ;  I  must,  therefore, 
if  I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting  another  passage, 
cite  it  merely  as  giving  a  faithful  summary  of  my 
own   opinion,  but  expressed  in   terms  admirable 
for  their  boldness,  and  how  much  more  forcible 
than  any  that  I  could  employ. 

*^'But  though"  (says  Mr.  Fisher  again,*)  "it 
"  has  happily  proved  that  the  cry  of  danger  was 
"  unfounded, /ar  otherwise  was  the  danger  of  the 
"  cry.  The  beginning  of  strife,  says  an  experienced 
"  ruler  of  a  people,  is  as  the  letting  out  of  waters  ; 
"  and  when  the  waters  of  strife  are  thus  let  out, 
"  the  dirty  torrent  sweeps  all  before  it ;  and  a  most 
"  awful  responsibility  rests  on  those  who  would 
"have  employed  such  an  ungovernable  instrument, 
''even  allowing  the  sincerity  of  their  apprehen- 
"sions.'f'  Let  it  be  duly  reflected  upon,  that  the 
"  three  divisions  of  this  United  Realm  have  each  a 
"  widely  diflerent  profession  of  faith,  and  that  in 


*  Sermon  of  the  Rev.  J.  Fisher,  page  15. 

t  Alluding  to  the  cry   of  "  No  Popery"  raised  at  the  General 
Election  which  had  just  then  taken  place. 

b2 


20 


<*  each  there  are  numerous  subdivisions  of  sects, 
'*  dready  sufficiently  irritated  by  religious  niceties  ; 
''  and  then  let  it  be  asked  if  this  be  an  age  and  a 
''  country  in  which  to  ^ciden  religious  differences,  or 
"  to  sport  with  religious  prejudices?'' 

And  now  one  word  respecting  the  principles 
sometimes  very  loosely,  sometimes  very  disinge- 
nuously, and  always  very  injuriously,  imputed  to 
the  Roman  Catholics  as  a  political  party.  For  it 
is  not  too  much  to  require  a  strong  prima  facie 
case  against  the  political  character  of  those  whom, 
by  certain  statutory  exceptions,  we  bar  from  the 
exercise  of  common  law  rights.  In  examining  the 
reasons  for  their  exclusion  founded  on  their  former 
conduct  and  character  as  a  sect  in  power,  it  is 
somewhat  in  favour  of  a  re-consideration  of  their 
case,  that  the  most  generally  received  illustrations 
from  domestic  history  bear  date  somewhere  about 
two  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago.  But  I  agree 
that  it  is  ridit  first  to  look  to  their  character  in 
power ;  and  therefore  our  opponents,  with  perfect 
justice,  though  with  a  somewhat  too  passionate 
alacrity,  always  direct  our  attention  to  the  reign  of 
bloody  Queen  Mary.  But  they  generally,  (which 
is  not  quite  so  just,)  having  begun  with  bloody 
Queen  Mary,  end  with  her  also.  Now,  this  is  an 
unfair  partiality ;  unfair  upon  her  religion,  unfair 
upon  her  family,  and  unfair  upon  others  who  were 
neither  of  her  religion  nor  her  family.  It  is  true 
that  the  details  of  obsolete  barbarities,  ''  cloathed," 

6 


21 

(as  It  has  been  well  expressed,)  ''  in  the  stolen  gar- 
ments of  religion,"*  and  perpetrated  amidst  the 
darkness  and  fury  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries,   abound  in   the  history  of  almost  every 
country   of  Europe.      That  age  may   be  termed 
eminently  the   age   of  Ecclesiastical  Persecution, 
among  all  churches  and  all  sects,  as  circumstances 
furnished  them  with  the  means ;   the  succeedino- 
age  may  be  termed  eminently  that  of  controversial 
Vexation.      The  same   year  had  given   birth   to 
Luther  and  Loyola.     The  one,  as  a  monk  in  an 
obscure  German  convent,  began  a  system  which 
he   lived  to  see    triumph  in    a  considerable  part 
of  northern  Europe  over  that  papal  influence  which, 
from  times  coeval  with  the  first  general  prevalence 
of  Christianity  itself,  had  maintained  uudisputed  an 
empire    claiming  to  extend  beyond  the  limits  of 
this  world.     The  other   was   the  founder  of  the 
mighty  order  of  the  Jesuits ;  that  fierce  spiritual 
aristocracy,  which,  rapidly  spreading  itself  from 
Spain  throughout  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe, 
became  the  dispenser  alike,  though  not  in  an  equal 
degree,  of  great  good  and  great  evil.    If  the  Jesuits 
bowed   nations  to  their  secular  yoke,  they  taucrht 
kings  also  to  tremble  before  the  political  authority 
of  powerful  associations  of  their   subjects.     They 
lorded  it  over  crowns,  but  gave  not  liberty  to  the 
people ;  they  guarded  letters,  and  perpetuated  by 


*  Ardiur  O'Lcary's  ''  Pica  for  Libedy  of  Conscience." 


■i  I 

4 


22 

education  the  lights  of  learning ;  they  cultivated 
for  the  use  of  man  those  arts  which  tend  to  peace 
and  humanity,  yet  kindled  throughout  all  the  great 
monarchies  of  Christendom  the  flames  of  what  are 
strangely  called  religions  war  and  religious  perse- 
cution, and  have  rendered  their  name  hateful  to  all 
posterity  as  the  authors  of  the  Holy  Inquisition. 
Yet  if,  where  Popery  kept  its   ground,  it  was  not 
by  gentle  or  warrantable    means,  neither  was  the 
march  of  the  Reformed  Religion  at  all  more  re- 
markable for  that    mild  and    sober  spirit   which 
should  ever  accompany  the   advances    of  Truth 
ao-ainst  Error  and  Corruption.    The  conflict,  which, 
during  the  earlier  period  of  its  success,  was  a  con- 
flict of  force  and  of  blood,  began,  as  its  footing 
in  England,  Germany,  Switzerland,   and  Holland 
became  more  secure,  to  affect  the  softer  character 
of  a  war  of  disputation.     The  infant  energies  of 
the  Reformation  had  prevailed,  and  Protestantism 
had   established    itself  too   firmly  to  require  the 
assistance  of  very  active  or  wholesale  persecution 
for  its   advancement.       In  this   country,  a   more 
silent,  though  not  less  effectual,  and  scarcely  less 
cruel,  system  of  persecution  prevailed,  liy  statutes 
well   framed  for  the  purpose  and  duly  executed. 
At  the  former  period,  the  mischiefs  of  a  civil  war, 
and  a  long  disputed  succession,  had  scarcely  been 
allayed  in  this  country,  the  sanguinary  habits  of 
our  countrymen  had  scarcely  had  time  to  subside, 
all  the  recollections  and  many  of  the  jealousies  of 


(  f 


23 

the  families  which  had  taken  opposite  sides  under 
the  two  Roses  were   still  fresh, — when   England 
suddenly  became  a  principal  stage  on  which  the 
great  quarrel  which  divided  the  Christian  Church 
was  to  be  decided.     Queen  Mary,  weak,  bigotted, 
and  cruel,  found  at  her  accession  the  basis  but 
newly  laid  of  the  Protestant  religion  in  England. 
The  heresy,  still  young,   was  gradually  hardening 
into  a  formidable  maturity.     It  had  been  reared 
in   a  royal   cradle,   and   not  by  guiltless  means. 
By    royal    hands    its   destruction    was   menaced, 
and  by  means    bearing   the  strongest  family  re- 
semblance to  those  that  had  protected  its  infancy, 
and   fostered    its   growing   power.      Devoted   as 
Queen  Mary  was  to  a  husband,  who  ruled  abso« 
lutely  over   a  country,  in  arms,   in  arts,  and  in 
commerce,  the  rival  of  England,  she  added  to  her 
naturally  arbitrary  temper  other  feelings   which 
made  her  a  willing  agent  in  the  hands  of  Spain  ; 
and  her  reign  has  been  deservedly  stigmatised  as 
one  of  fire  and  blood.     Yet  we  Protestants  have 
since  had  the  story  a  little  too  much  our  own  way, 
and  have  argued  the  matter  somewhat  after  the 
fashion  in  which  King  Henry  the  Eighth  argued  the 
matter  of  transubstantiation  with  the  unfortunate 
Lambert;   holding,  like  him,  our  disputation  in 
our  own  court,  upon  evidence  exclusively  of  our 
own  choosing,  before  our  own  audience ;  and,  like 
him,  denouncing  severe  penalties  upon  our  adver- 
sary, if  judgment  should  be  so  given  against  him. 


^ 


24 

Our  histories  have  not,  I  believe,  stated  what 
is  untrue  of  Queen  Mary,  nor  perhaps  liave  they 
very  much  exaggerated  what  is  true  of  her ;  but  our 
arguers,  whose  only  talk  is  of  Smithfield,  are 
generally  very  uncandid  in  what  they  conceal. 
It  would  appear  to  be  little  known  that  the  statutes 
which  enabled  Mary  to  burn  those  who  had  con- 
formed to  the  Church  of  her  father  and  brother, 
w^ere  Protestant  statutes,  declaring  the  common 
law  against  heresy,  and  framed  by  her  father 
Henry  the  Eighth,  and  confirmed  and  acted  upon 
by  Order  of  Council  of  her  brother  Edward  the 
Sixth,  enabling  that  mild  and  temperate  young 
sovereign  to  burn  divers  misbelievers,  by  sentence 
of  commissioners,  (little  better,  says  Neale,  than 
a  Protestant  Inquisition,)  appointed  to  *^  examine 
"and  search  after  all  Anabaptists,  Heretics,  or 
"contemners  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer."^- 
It  would  appear  to  be  seldom  considered  that  her 
zeal  might  very  possibly  have  been  warmed  by  the 
circumstance  of  both  her  chaplains  having  been 
imprisoned  for  their  religion,  and  herself  arbi- 
trarily detained,  and  her  safety  threatened,  durino- 
the  short  but  persecuting  reign  of  her  brother.^ 
The  sad  evidences  of  the  violence  of  those  days  are 
by  no  means  confined  to  her  acts.  The  faggots 
of  persecution  were  not  kindled  by  Papists  only, 


•  Burnet's  History  of  the  Reformation,  vol.  ii.  page  111;  Rymer 
vol.  XV.  page  181 .     Neale's  History  of  the  Puritans,  vol.  i.  p.  49. 
t  Strype,  vol.  ii.  p.  249;  Heyward,  p.  315. 


-affl*--; 


i^Wf*. 


25 

nor  did  they  cease  to  blaze  when  the  power  of  using 
them  as  instruments   of  conversion  ceased  to  be 
in  Popish  hands.    Cranmer  himself,  in  his  dreadful 
death,  met  with  but  equal  measure  for  the  flames 
to  which  he  had  doomed  several  who  denied  the 
spiritual   supremacy   of    Henry   the   Eighth ;    to 
which  he  had   doomed   also  a   Dutch   Arian,  in 
Edward  the  Sixth's  reign ;  and  to   which,   with 
great  pains  and  difficulty,  he  had  persuaded  that 
prince  to  doom  another  miserable  enthusiast,  Joan 
Bocher,  for  some  metaphysical  notions  of  her  own 
on    the   divine  incarnation.*     '^  So  that  on  both 
*' sides"  (says  Lord  Herbert,    of  Cherbury,)   ^^  it 
"  grew  a  bloody  timc'^f     Calvin  burned  Servetus 
at  Geneva, for  "discoursing  concerning  the  Trinity, 
"  contrary  to  the  sense  of  the  whole  Church,  and 
"  thereupon  set  forth  a  book  wherein  he  giveth  an 
'^  account  of  his  doctrine,  and  of  whatever  else  had 
"  passed  in  this  affair,  and  teacheth  that  the  sword 
*'  may  be  lawfully  employed   against  heretics. "X 
Yet  Calvin  was  no  Papist.    John  Knox  extolled  in 
his  w-ritings,  as  ''  the  godly  fact  of  James  Melvil,''§ 
the  savage  murder  by  which  Cardinal  Beaton  was 


♦  Burnetts  Reformation,  vol.  ii.  p.  111.  Neale's  History  of  the 
Puritans,  vol.  i.  p.  48,  et  seq, 

t  Life  of  Henry  VIII.  p.  420 ;  Burnet,  vol.  ii.  Coll.  35;  Strype's 
Memoirs  of  Cranmer,  p.  181. 

t  Sleidan's  History  of  the  Reformation,  translated  by  Bohun, 
p.  594. 

§  Hume,  Edvpard  VI. ;  Keith's  History  of  the  Reformation  of 
Scotland,  p.  43. 


26 

made  to  expiate  his  many  and  cruel  persecutions  ; 
a  murder  to  which,  by  the  great  popular  eloquence 
of  Knox,  his  fellow  labourers  in  the  vineyard  of 
reformation,  Lesly  and  Melvil,  had  been  excited  : 
and  yet  John  Knox,  and  Lesly,  and  Melvil,  were 
no  Papists.  Henry  the  Eighth,  whose  one  virtue 
was  impartiahty  in  these  matters,  (if  an  impartial 
and  evenly  balanced  persecution  of  all  sects  be  a 
virtue,)  beheaded  a  Chancellor  and  a  Bishop, 
because,  having  admitted  his  civil  supremacy,  they 
doubted  his  spiritual.  Of  the  latter  of  them  Lord 
Herbert  says,  ^'The  Pope,  who  suspected  not, 
"  perchance,  that  the  Bishop's  end  w  as  so  near, 
*'  had,  for  more  testimony  of  his  favour  to  him  as 
"  disaffection  to  our  King,  sent  him  a  cardinal's 
''hat;  but  unseasonably,  his  head  being  off."*  He 
beheaded  the  Countess  of  Salisbury,  because  at 
upwards  of  eighty  years  old  she  wrote  a  letter  to 
Cardinal  Pole,  her  own  son ;  and  he  burned 
Barton,  the  '^  Holy  Maid  of  Kent,"  for  a  prophecy 
of  his  death.  He  burned  four  Anabaptists  in  one 
day  for  opposing  the  doctrine  of  infant  baptism  ; 
and  he  burned  Lambert,  and  Anne  Ascue,  and 
Belerican,  and  Lassells,  and  Adams,  on  another 
day,  for  opposing  that  of  transubstantiation  ;  with 
many  others,  of  lesser  note,  who  refused  to  sub- 
scribe to  his  Six  Bloody  Articles,  as  they  were 
called,  or  whose  opinions  fell  short  of  his,  or 
exceeded  them,  or  who  abided  by  opinions  after 

*  Life  ol  Henry  Vlll.  p  420. 


27 

he  had  abandoned  them  :*=  and  all  this  after  the 
Reformation.  And  yet  Henry  the  Eighth  was  the 
sovereign  who  first  delivered  us  from  the  yoke  of 

Rome. 

In  later  times,  thousands  of  Protestant  dissenters 

of  the  four  great  sects  were  made  to  languish  in 
loathsome  prisons,  and  hundreds  to  perish  miser- 
ably, during  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,t 
under  a  Protestant  High  Church  Government, 
who  then  first  applied,  in  the  prayer  for  the  Parlia- 
ment, the  epithets  of  "  most  religious  and  gracious" 
to  a  sovereign  whom  they  knew  to  be  profligate 
and  unprincipled  beyond  example,  and,  had  reason 
to  suspect  to  be  a  concealed  Papist. 

Later  still.  Archbishop  Sharpe  was  sacrificed 
by  the  murderous  enthusiasm  of  certain  Scotch 
Covenanters,  who  yet  appear  to  have  sincerely 
believed  themselves  inspired  by  Heaven  to  thi§ 
act  of  cold-blooded  barbarous  assassination. 

On  subjects  like  these,  silence  on  all  sides,  and 
a  mutual  interchange  of  repentance,  forgiveness, 
and  oblivion,  is  wisdom.  But  to  quote  grievances 
on  one  side  only  is  not  honesty.  Nor  should 
we,  if  we  eagerly  read  the  story  of  the  massacres 
of  Protestants  in  Ireland  in  1641,  turn  our  eyes 

•  Hume^s  History  of  England,  Henry  VIII. ;  Lord  Herbert, 
id.  pages  404,  419,  420,  528,  and  530.   Sec  also  for  the  Six  Articles, 

id,  pajifC  508. 

f  Neal's  History  of  the   Puritans,  vol.  iv.  page  320  ^<  ser/.  to 

page  447. 


28 

from  that  of  the  massacres  of  the  Catholics  from 
the  time  of  James  the  First  to  that  of  King  William 
inclusively.  We  there  find -and,  alas !  much  later 
than  King  William's  time  we  find,— the  details 
of  many  a  dreadful  and  savage  execution  (to  the 
very  letter  of  that  dreadful  and  savage  law  till  of 
late  in  force  against  treason,)  upo^^i  the  persons 
of  Roman  Catholic  priests,  the  aged,  the  unoffend- 
ing,  and   the  pious ;— hanged,   but  not  till  they 

were    dead,    and    then (but    those  who   are 

curious  for  such  details  may  be  abundantly  grati- 
fied by  consulting  the  Statute  Book,)  for  no  other 
crime  than  the  having  administered  to  the  sick 
and  dying  the  last  comforts  of  their  persecuted 
communion.  It  was  not  until  the  reign  of  Georcre 
the  Third  that  the  laws  were  repealed  by  which  it 
was  death  to  ofl^ciate  at  the  Mass.  Under  these 
dreadful  laws  many  hundreds  of  priests  have  been 
put  to  a  cruel  and  ignominious  death. 

The  history  of  massacres  on  both  sides  have 
however,  as  might  have  been  expected,  been 
strangely  exaggerated.  For  example  :— Borlace 
(a  writer  very  zealously  quoted  by  some  who  are 
eager  to  revive  the  remembrance  of  outrages 
long  past,  and  feuds  that  ought  to  have  been  long 
ago  reconciled,)  states  that  in  1641  no  less  than 
one  hundred  thousand  Protestants  were  murdered 
in  the  course  of  a  few  days  in  Ireland.  Sir  John 
Temple,  another  historian  equally  in  repute  with 
the  same  party,  and  whose  authority,  in  spight 


29 


of  consanguinity,  I  am  constrained  to  doubt,  calcu- 
lates the  proportion  of  Catholics  to  Protestants  in 
Ireland  as  thirty  to  one.  Now  let  us  suppose  that 
only  five  Protestants  escaped  for  every  one  who  was 
murdered,  man,  woman,  and  child,  throughout  the 
land,  (which  is  the  very  smallest  allowance  we  can 
make,  considering  that  the  whole  massacre  lasted  but 
afewdays,)and  this  givesus,on  the  joint  authority  of 
these  contemporary  historians,  a  gross  population  of 

at  \eastsix hundred thousandProtestants  and  eighteen 
millions  of  Catholics  \n  Ireland  in   1641.     Hume, 
more  moderately,  estimates  the  Catholics  as  only 
in  the  proportion  of  six  to  one  to  the  Protestants, 
but  says  that  by  some  computations  those   who 
perished  are  supposed  to  be  150  or  200,000  ;   and 
yet,  with  all  the  powers  of  multiplication  of  that 
fruitful  island,  I  believe  that  the  highest  estimate  of 
its  population  now  does  not  far  exceed  seven  mil- 
lions.    But,  leaving  what  may  be  termed  the  fabu- 
lous and  heroic  ages  of  Protestant  and  Popish  Nar- 
rative, what  are  we  to  learn  from  the  uncontested 
facts  that  remain  1  Why  that  Persecution  and  Mur- 
der do  not  belong  to  the  tenets  of  any  sect  of  Chris- 
tians.   That  these  histories  are  the  histories  of  bad 
times  and  of  bad  men,  such  as  all  ages  and  all 
large  sects  have  produced  ;  but  that  the  laws  of 
the  present  age,  and  that  manners  more  powerful 
than  laws,  (such  as  enable  the  stranger  now  to 
approach  the  fortresses  of  Arundel,  or  Wardour,  or 
Stafford,  witliout  fear  of  sling  or  bow-shot,)  may 


( 


30 

be  trusted  to  restrain  the  subjects  of  this  realm  of 
whatever  sects,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  from  re- 
viving the  theological  labours  of  those  two  ancient 
co-missionaries,  Fire  and  Sword. 

"  I  tcill  be  attacked   (says  O'Leary,)  with  the 
''  council  of  Lateran,  the  wars  of  the  Albigenses,  the 
"  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  &c.     I  am  a  Chris- 
**  tian,  and  deny  the  transmigration  of  souls.    I  am 
"  no  wise  concerned  in  past  transactions  ;  or,  if  my 
**  relio-ion  be  charo:ed  with  them,  I  have  in  my  hands 
''the  cruel  arms  of  retaliation."*     Then  let  us  be 
just.     Let  us   remember,    whilst  we   accuse  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion  of  the  atrocities  of  Queen 
Mary,  that  we  should  not  relish  the  hearing  our 
own  charged  with  the  murderous  acts  of  her  father 
and   brother.     Henry   the   Eighth   was  the   first 
Protestant  King  of  England  ;  yet  what  Papist  is 
there  so  wicked  or  so  mad  as  to  maintain  that  it  is 
a  practice  sanctioned  by  our  religion  to  marry  six 
wives,  divorce  three,  and  behead  two.     And  yet 
this  would  be  a  mode  of  reasoning  nearly  as  liberal, 
as  wise,  and  as  true.    Far  different,  however,  from 
the  reigns  of  the  three  sovereigns  of  her  house 
immediately    preceding    her,   was,    with  all   its 

*  O'Leary's  Remarks  on  Mr.  Wesley's  Letter.  In  quoting 
from  the  works  of  this  eloquent  and  patriotic  Irishman,  of  course 
I  am  not  guilty  of  the  arrogance  of  changing  a  word.  I  would 
\enture,  however,  to  suggest,  that  by  the  term  of  volition  printed 
in  italics  at  the  beginning  of  the  sentence  is  meant  only  the  sign  of 
the  future  tense. 


31 

violencies,  that  of  Queen   Elizabeth.      She  was 
seldom   a  persecutor  for  mere  religion  ;  and  she 
loved  her  country  too  well,  and  was  too  proud  of  it, 
to  content  herself  with  being  the  Queen  of  only 
one  party  in  it,  in  order  to  become  the  oppressor  of 
the  rest.     She  was  arbitrary  by  the  acclamation  of 
her  people ;   she  was  cruel  from  the  dangers  that 
surrounded  her.     Her  Parliament,  it  is  true,  de- 
clared  the  corresponding  with  the  see  of  Rome  to 
be  high  treason.     But  the  proof  that  this  was  not 
a  law  against  the  religion  simply  was  that  this  law 
was  not  extended  to  Ireland.    She  burned  Papists, 
it  is  true,  in  numbers  sufficient,  if  not  to  balance, 
at  least  to  countenance,  the  persecutions  of  her 
sister.     But  it  appears  that  she  seldom   burned 
them  from  a  mere  controversial  impulse;  it  was 
usually   when   she   found   one  who  favoured   the 
political  views  of  the  Queen  of  Scots,  or  the  poli- 
tical doctrines  of  the  Jesuits  of  Spain,  that  she 
took  the  short  road  to  Justice,  and  destroyed  him 
as  a  Papist.     But  the  Catholics  of  England  were 
not  even  in  those  days  justly  chargeable  as  a  body 
with  joining  either  of  these  parties,  or  with  being 
disposed  to  obey  the  deposing   bull   of  Pius   V. 
And  the  Spanish  admiral  Medina  Sidonia  knew 
it,  when  he  said  that  ''  if  he  had  landed  he  would 
"  have  made  no  more  distinction  between  Catholics 
"and  Protestants  than  what  the  point  of  his  sword 
''would  have   made  between  their  flesh."      And 
Queen  Elizabeth  knew  it,  and  acted  as  one  who 


I 


32 


38 


knew  it.  For  Catholics  sat  indiscriminately  with 
Protestants  in  her  Parliaments;  and  she  admitted 
persons  of  all  religious  persuasions  to  her  councils 
and  to  the  highest  offices  of  the  state.  Lord 
Pembroke,  her  Governor  of  Dover  Castle  and 
Keeper  of  her  Great  Seal,  was  a  Roman  Catholic. 
Lord  Clifford,  her  Warden  of  the  Scottish  Marches, 
was  a  Roman  Catholic.  And  there  is  every  reason 
to  believe  that  Lord  Effingham,  tvho  commanded 
her  fleet  against  the  Spanish  armada,  whose  ban- 
ners  the  Pope  himself  had  blessed,  was  a  Roman 
Catholic.  The  history  of  the  causes  that  led  to 
the  severities  she  practised  should  be  more  fully 
studied  than  it  generally  is,  before  Justice  can,  I 
think,  be  done  to  the  memory  of  this  glorious 
Princess.  It  tends,  however,  to  establish  this  fact, 
that  generally  these  were  ''  acts  of  signal  severity 
"  against  those  who  were  privily  practising  for 
^'  Rome  and  Spain,  and  who,  to  attach  the 
'^  unlearned  and  meaner  sort  to  their  party  in  the 
*'  state,  made  religion  a  pretence^* 

But  if  we  acquit  the  Roman  Catholic  religion 
of  being  essentially  and  uniformly  a  religion  of 
blood,  what  remains?  That  it  disturbs  the  undi- 
vided allegiance  due  to  the  sovereign,  and  intro- 

♦  See  Sir  Francis  VValsingham's  Letter;  William  Lord  Bur- 
leigh's "  Execution  of  Justice  in  England  j"  also  Dr.  Birch's 
*'View  of  the  Negociations  between  England,  France,  and  Brus- 
sels;" also  Lord  Bolinbroke's  ♦*  Essays  on  English  History,'* 
Reign  of  Elizabeth. 


1 


duces  a  foreign  and  superior  jurisdiction.  This  is 
at  least  a  milder  charge,  and  one  bearing  a  fairer 
character  of  probability ;  yet,  if  English  history 
be  evidence,  a  charge  equally  untenable  and  un- 
true. If  I  am  told  that  there  were  treasonable 
negociations  between  English  Catholics  and  foreign 
countries  whilst  their  reliction  was  sufferins:  under 
active  and  fiery  persecution  in  their  own,  I  protest 
against  the  nature  of  the  evidence.  It  does  not 
touch  the  charge.  While,  by  the  penal  system, 
which  lasted  for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half,  the 
English  government  pursued  them  as  enemies,  of 
course  they  were  enemies  of  the  English  govern- 
ment. The  extirpation  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion  was  the  avowed  object  of  the  Protestant 
government;  the  overthrow,  then,  of  the  Pro- 
testant government  I  take  it  for  granted  was 
the  first,  and  dearest,  and  deepest,  as  it  was  the 
most  natural,  among  the  secret  wishes  of  the 
Roman  Catholics.  But  I  appeal  to  their  conduct 
since  the  mitigation  of  that  system,  and  I  stake  the 
cause  upon  the  issue  of  that  appeal.  Nay,  throuoh- 
out  the  early  history  of  this  country,  in  the  high 
and  palmy  days  of  Popery,  in  the  days  when 
emperors  held  the  stirrup  of  a  Pope,  and  kings  did 
homage  to  him  for  their  crowns,  from  the  time 
when  our  Roman  Catholic  ancestors,  in  defiance 
of  the  Pope,  gave  us  Magna  Charta,  and  the 
Statutes  of  Mortmain  and  Provisors,  and,  in  re- 
jection of  his  Canon  Law,  recorded  their  immortal 

c 


*. 


,    I 


34 

protest,  ''  Nolunuis  leges,"  &c.  down  to  the  period  of 
the  Reformation  itself,  shew  me  the  time  or  the  in- 
stance in  which  the  Roman  Catholics  of  England 
ever  admitted  or  recognized  the  interference  of  the 
Pope  in  matters  of  state  between  them  and  their 
sovereign,  and  I  give  up  the  argument. 

The  history  of  Catholic  England  for  centuries  is 
one  of  almost  unceasing  attempts  on  the  part  of 
Popes,  sometimes  supported  by  the  king,  some- 
times in  opposition  to  the  king,  to  obtain  a  temporal 
ascendancy  here  ;  but  it  is  also  the  history  of  un- 
ceasing, firm,  and  successful  resistance  on  the  part 
of  Catholic  England.  Again,  J  say,  shew  me 
that  I  am  wrong  in  this  fact,  and  I  give  up  the 
argument. 

But  it  is  said,  and  from  high  authority  too,  that  to 
a  king  who  is  not  a  Roman  Catholic,  they  cannot 
bear  other  than  a  divided  allegiance.     I  say  the 
charge  is  unsupported  by  fact,  and,  if  it  were  true, 
would  not  be  a  very  discreet  charge  to  make  against 
more  than  seven  millions  of  people,  now  livino* 
within  the  allegiance  of  the  king  of  this  empire. 
I  say,  further,  that  it  is  disproved  wherever  Roman 
Catholics   are  admitted  (and  that  is  every  where 
but  here,)  to  a  full  enjoyment  of  civil  rights  under 
sovereigns   not  of  their  creed.     I  say  that   it  is 
disproved    in   Prussia,    disproved    in    Denmark, 
disproved  in  Sweden,  disproved  in  Hanover,  dis- 
proved in  the  Netherlands,  disproved  throughout 
the  Russian  Empire,  and  proved  nowhere. 


Vi 


B 


35 

It  is  a  charge   not    imputed    by   the    laws   of 
England,   nor  by   the   oaths    which   exclude  the 
Catholics;  for  those  oaths  impute  only  spiritual 
errors.     But  it  is  imputed,  which  is  more  to  the 
purpose,  by  those  persons  who  approve  of  the  ex- 
cluding oaths,  and  wish  them  retained.     But,  to 
the  whole  of  this  imputation  ;  even  if  no  other 
instance  could  be  adduced  ;  as  far  as  a  strong  and 
remarkable  example  can  prove  the  negative  of  an 
assumption  which  there  is  not  a  single  example  to 
support,— the  full,  and  sufficient,  and  incontestible 
answer  is  Canada.     Canada,  which,  until  you  can 
destroy  the  memory  of  all  that  now  remains  to 
you  of  your  sovereignty  on  the   North  American 
continent,    is  an   answer   practical,     memorable, 
difficult  to  be  accounted  for,  but  blazing  as  the 
sun  itself  in  sight  of  the  whole  world,  to  the  whole 
charge  of  divided  allegiance.     At  your  conquest  of 
Canada,  you  found  it  Roman  Catholic  ;  you  had 
to  choose  for  her  a  constitution  in  Church  and 
State.      You   were    wise  enough   not   to   thwart 
public    opinion.       Your    ow^n    conduct    towards 
Presbyterianism  in  Scotland  was  an  example  for 
imitation  ;  your  own  conduct  towards  Catholicism 
in   Ireland  was   a  beacon   for  avoidance;  and  in 
Canada  you  established  and  endowed  the  relio-ion 
of  the   people.     Canada  was   your  only   Roman 
Catholic   colony.     Your  other  colonies  revolted  ; 
they  called  on  a  Catholic  power  to  support  them, 
and  they  achieved  their  independence.     Catholic 

c2 


/ft 


i  '. '  -. 


36 

Canada,  with  what  Lord  Liverpool  would  call  her 
half-allegiance,  alone  stood  by   you.     She  fought 
by  your  side  against  the  interference  of  Catholic 
France.     To  reward  and  encourage  her  loyalty, 
you  endowed    in    Canada   bishops  to  say  mass, 
and  to  ordain  others  to  say  mass,  whom,  at  that 
very  time,  your  laws  would  have  hanged  for  say- 
ing mass  in  England;  and  Canada  is  still  yours, 
in    spight  of  Catholic  France,  in  spight    of  her 
spiritual  obedience  to  the  Pope,  in  spight  of  Lord 
Liverpool's  argument,  and  in  spight  of  the  inde- 
pendence   of  all   the   states    that   surround    her. 
This  is   the  only   trial  you  have  made.     Where 
you    allow  to  the  Roman  Catholics  their   religion 
undisturbed,  it  has  proved  itself  to  be  compatible 
with  the  most  faithful  allegiance.     It  is  only  where 
you  have  placed  allegiance  and  religion  before  them 
as  a  dilemma,  that  they  have  preferred  (as  who  will 
say  they  ought  not?)  their  religion  to  their  alle- 
giance.    How  then  stands  the  imputation?     Dis- 
proved by  history,  disproved   in  all  states  where 
both  relio:ions  co-exist,  and  in  both  hemispheres, 
and  asserted  in  an  exposition  by  Lord   Liverpool, 
solemnly  and  repeatedly  abjured  by  all  Catholics, 
of  the  discipline  of  their  church. 

That  their  religion  is  one  that  tends  to  civil 
slavery,  is  a  position  difficult  to  maintain  by  proof. 
Take  the  small  but  free  states  of  Italy  and  Dalmatia 
as  an  instance,  which  for  ages  preserved  their 
national  independence,  till  abolished,  some  by  that 


•j-<.. 


(»,i. 
,->»-'. 


37 

power  before  which   all    the    large    states  of  the 
continent  bowed,  and  others   by  that  subsequent 
fury  of  partition  and  annexation  which  has  changed 
the  relation  of  almost  all  the  small  ones.     Take,  as 
an   instance,   among    those   "  monuments  of  the 
justice  of  Europe,  the  asylum  of  peace,  of  industry, 
and  of  literature,  the  organs  of  public  reason,  the  re- 
fuge of  oppressed  innocence  and  persecuted  truth,"* 
among  the  republics  of  Switzerland,  take  the  seven 
Catholic  Cantons,  who  were  the  first  in  arms  for 
liberty  against  the    invader,  and  the   last   to   be 
subdued.      Let  the  sad    and    bloody   tragedy  of 
Poland  shew  that  their  religion,  although   main- 
taining as  essential  the  duty  of  spiritual  subjection, 
is  not   incompatible    with   the    purest  and    most 
gallant  love   of  political  freedom.     Let  our  own 
constitution,  founded,  declared,  and  preserved,  by 
our  Catholic  ancestors,  speak  for  their  children, 
who  are  excluded  from  some  of  its  most  important 
benefits.     Public  liberty,  though  it  may  depend  on 
some  abstract  and  remote  principles  for  support, 
and  though  many  are  the  passions  and  prejudices 
that  may  be  excited  to  endanger  it,   is    not,   in 
England    at   least,  to  be  put  to  hazard  by  mere 
tenets  of  spiritual    belief.     But  our  systems  and 
habits,    and    the   difficulties    and   risks    through 
which  our  liberty   has  been    reared,  have   made 
our  love   of  it  a  very  jealous  love,   and  it  is  not 

*  Mackiulosirs  Defence  of  M.  Peltier,  p.  88. 


38 


much  to  be  wondered  at  that,  in  searching  our 
stores  for  weapons  of  vituperation  against  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  we  should  sometimes  be 
tempted  by  a  climax  as  untrue  as  this,  ''Popery 
every  where,  and  at  all  times,  the  code  of  Civil 
Slavery." 

But  neither  the  tyranny  endured  throughout  the 
reigns  of  the  Plantagenets,  nor  the  slavish  doctrines 
acquiesced  in  during  the  reigns  of  the  first  of 
the  Tudor  or  the  last  of  the  Stuart  kings,  can  be 
justly  attributed  to  the  influence  of  the  religion 
which  then  prevailed.  The  courtly  Protestants  of 
the  days  of  James  the  First  were  as  lavish  in 
blasphemously  assigning  to  a  weak  and  detestable 
man  the  attribute  of  divine  delegation,  as  were 
the  courtlv  Catholics  of  other  davs.  It  was  not  a 
Popish  parliament  which  told  James  the  First  that 
*'  they  were  but  as  the  breath  of  his  nostrils  ;"  nor 
w  as  it  a  Popish  bishop  who  said  of  him,  "  he  verily 
believed  he  spake  with  the  spirit  of  God."  Such 
were  excesses  of  arbitrary  and  corrupt  courts  in  all 
ao*es.  In  1683,  the  decree  and  address  of  our  two 
universities,  the  former  published  on  the  very 
mornins:  of  Lord  Russel's  execution,  not  only 
asserted  the  divine  right  of  kings,  and  the  duty  of 
non-resistance  in  subjects,  as  doctrines  maintained 
by  themselves,  and  taught  to  the  youth  placed 
under  their  care,  but  declared  the  contrary  position 
to   be    ''impious   and   heretical."*      This  extra- 

*  See  Oxford  Decree  and  Caf>.bridji;L' Atldress,  lGb>5. 


39 

ordinary  display  of  principles    appearing,    by   a 
singular  coincidence  of  dates,  just  five  years  after 
the   enactment    of    the    oaths   excluding  Roman 
Catholics,  and  just  five  years  before  the  revolution. 
Nor  is  this  fact  less  singular,  that,  still  nearer  that 
event,  on  the  bill  for  the  exclusion  of  the  Duke  of 
York,    the    whole    bench   of  Protestant  Bishops 
voted  according  to  the  wishes  of  the  sovereign  and 
the  heir  presumptive  ;  albeit,  for  the  admitting  a 
notorious  and  avowed  Papist  to  the  throne  of  these 
realms.*     "  And  the  clergy,"  says  Burnet,  "  set 
"  up  a  higher  note,  with  such  zeal  for  the  duke's 
"  succession,  as  if  a  Popish  king  had  been  a  special 
"  blessing  from  heaven,  to  be  much  longed  for  by 
"a  Protestant  church. "t     Now,  would   it  not  be 
most   untrue    if    a    Catholic,   using   the    "  cruel 
arms  of  retaliation,"  were  to   declare  that  such 
instances  of  profligate    baseness   proceeded  from 
some  time-serving  spirit  inherent  in  Protestantism, 
or  that  it  was  owing  to  the  genius  of  our  religion 
that  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway,  which  were 
limited  monarchies  in  their  Catholic  times,  became 
absolute  when  they  became  Protestant. 

It  is  said  that  their  religion  is  intolerant  wherever 
it  is  the  religion  of  the  state.  Not  only  this  is  not 
true,  but,  if  by  this  is  meant  that  in  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  Catholic  Europe  the  governments 


*  Burnet.   Own  Times,  vol.  2,  page  482. 
t  Own  Times,  vol.  2,  page  501. 


40 

do  not  freely  tolerate  the  professors  of  other  creeds, 
I  say  the  direct  contrary  is  the  truth  ;  and  I  appeal 
to  facts  to  which  those  who  have  not  industry  and 
fairness   to  look,    and    still    hold    this    language, 
impeach    both  their  candour  and   their  wisdom. 
In  very  much  the  greater  part  of  Popish  Europe, 
(and  I  say   "Popish,'' in  order  to  deal  fairly  and 
exclude  all  Russia,  of  which,  however,  the  same 
thing   is   true,    and    where  transubstantiation   is 
potently  believed,   and   a   prodigious   number  of 
saints  worshipped,)  throughout  the  whole  Austrian 
Empire,    and  French   monarchy,   Protestants  are 
not  onlv  bv  law  tolerated  in    their  worship,  but 
admitted    in   common    with   Catholics   to  all   the 
privileges  in  the  state  to  which  Catholics  are  now 
petitioning  to  be  admitted  in  England,     But,  with 
reo-ard  to  France,  how  much  am   I  understating 
the  fact !     A  complete  establishment,  beneficed  by 
the  state,  is  at  this  hour  enjoyed  by  the  Protestant 
clergy  in  France.     Equal  to  that  enjoyed  by  the 
established  Roman  Catholic  clergy  of  that  country? 
No !     For  their  salaries  are  much  larger.     By  the 
law  of  France,  every  clergyman  is  salaried  by  the 
government,   the  amount  being  regulated  by  the 
extent  of  his  cure,  and  by  the  comparative  expence 
of  living  in  the  part  of  the  country  where  it  is 
situated  ;  so  as  to  secure  to  each  a   decent  and 
liberal  maintenance.     The  clergy  of  their  national 
church   being  by  its  discipline  forbidden  to  marry, 
are  provided  for  as  single  men.     The  Protestant 


M 


V 


41 

clergy,  being  by  their  discipline  permitted  to  marry, 
and  being  therefore  presumed  by  the  government 
to  be  married  men,  receive  each  a  salary  nearly 
one  third  larger  than  what  is  given  to  a  priest  of 
the  established  church.  Now  if  this  be  untrue,  let 
me  be  convicted.  But  if  it  be  true,  I  call  on  every 
Protestant  brawler  for  shame  to  be  cautious  in 
what  he  says  upon  the  comparative  liberalitv  of 
Catholic  and  Protestant  States  to  their  Dissenters. 
With  the  exception  of  the  Pope  himself,  there  are 
but  three  sovereigns  now  in  Europe  in  whose  do- 
minions a  difference  in  religion  is  held  to  be  an 
objection  in  law  to  the  filling  all  civil  functions  ; — 
Ferdinand  of  Spain,  Sultan  Selim  of  Turkey,  and 
the  King  of  England. 

Av,  but  there  is  a  oreat  difference  between 
tolerating  Protestants  and  tolerating  Papists. 
What  is  justice  and  right  for  the  one  is  not  neces- 
sarily justice  and  right  for  the  other.  On  these 
points  *'  your  shop  (as  Mr.  Burke  says)  is  full  of 
*'  false  weights  and  measures  ;  and  tlie  adding  or 
*'  taking  away  the  name  of  Protestant  or  Papist 
alters  all  the  principles  of  equity,  policy,  and 
prudence  ;  and  leaves  no  common  data  on  which 


u 


(( 


'*  we  can  reason." 


Let  it  not,  then,  be  said  that  I  aiu  wantonly 
contrasting  the  narrowness  of  our  own  policy  with 
the  comparative  liberality  of  Roman  Catholic  go- 
vernments, if  I  give  an  outline  of  the  condition  of 
persons  of  their  communion  with  us.      I  wish  the 


42 

contrast  did  not  exist,  and  1  wish  that  I  could  now 
witness  the  astonishment  with  which  every  man 
in  EnHand  will,  I  am  convinced,  in  a  very  few 
years  hence,  look  back  upon  the  disgraceful  ano- 
maly which  our  Popery  Code  has  so  long  exhi- 
bited ;  standing,  like  the  "  tall  bully"  of  the  city 
of  London,  a  monument  of  senseless  calumny  and 
injustice,  eminent  and  alone  in  its  shame  amidst 
all  the  surrounding  institutions  of  our  national 
prosperity,  strength,  and  glory. 

I    believe    that    what    remains    of    that  code 
is   not   generally   known.      It  should    be   known 
universally.     Look  at  home,— to  England.     The 
Roman  Catholics  are  not  only  precluded  from  sit- 
ting and  voting  in  either  House  of  Parliament, 
they  cannot  in  England  or  Scotland  fill  any  office, 
the  lowest,  of  civil  trust,  under  the  crown.     A 
Catholic  cannot  in  this  island  act  as  a  magistrate. 
The  Duke  of  Norfolk  at  the  coronation  tendered 
to  the  Kinjr  his  fealty  in  the  name  of  all  the  peers 
of  the  realm,  of  whom  he  is  the  first.     As  such,  he 
takes  his  stand  nearest  to  the  throne.     But,  though 
first  by  the  side  of  his   sovereign,  and  highest 
among  the  nobles  of  the  land,  he  is  disqualified 
from  the  more  select  honours   of  a  seat  at  petty 
session.  Of  the  names  that  are  attached  to  Magna 
Charta,  every  one  that  still  survives  the  lapse  of 
time  survives  in  the  person  of  a  Roman  Catholic. 
But  the  names  that  attested  and  ratified  the  first 
title-deed  of  Englisii  liberty  cannot  now  authorise 

1 


43 


i 


the  relief  of  a  parish  pauper.  In  this  island  a  Catho- 
lic cannot  act  as  an  exciseman.  The  excise  and 
customs  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  are  now  con- 
solidated. In  Ireland  it  is  not  held  necessary  to 
ascertain  the  dogmatical  tenets  of  a  man,  in  order 
to  qualify  him  for  collecting  the  revenue  ;  but  let 
him  be  removed  to  England,  and  not  a  bale  can  be 
landed  or  barrel  gauged  unless  transubstantiation 
shall  have  been  previously  renounced,  and  invoca- 
tion of  saints  declared  idolatrous,  on  the  corporal 
oath  of  both  tide-waiter  and  ganger. 

The  Roman  Catholics  of  Great  Britain  have  no 
vote  at  an  election.     They  live  under  laws  made 
and  taxes  imposed  by  a  body  in  which  they  are 
not   represented.     In  this  respect,  and  in  every 
other  except  the  inheritance  of  land,  they  are  as 
aliens.     Well  then,  if  they  suffer  under  the  disqua- 
lifications  of  foreigners,   have  they  the  privileges 
of  foreigners  ?     I  have  always  considered  the  sum^ 
mary  of  Esiglish  freedom  to  consist  in  the  protec- 
tion given  to  our  rights, — 1st,  by  the  being  repre- 
sented in  Parliament ; — and  2dly,  by  the  being  able 
to  claim,  in  cases  of  life,  liberty,  or  property,  a  trial 
by  our  peers.     Having,  then,  by  our  laws  deprived 
the   foreigner  of   some  of  the  higher  benefits  of 
English  citizenship,  we  have  felt  it  just  to  give 
him   a    special    protection   in   compensation :   the 
power  to  claim  a  jury  half  of  foreigners,  his  fellows 
in   rcvspect   of  privilege.     A    French    Catholic,  a 
Spaniard,  an    Italian,    may  claim   a  jury  half  of 


44 

Catholic  foreigners.  A  Catholic,  born  a  citizen, 
but  by  your  laws  disclairaed  as  a  fellow  citizen,  is 
amenable  in  property,  liberty,  and  life,  to  a  tribunal 
before  which  he  alone  cannot  claim  to  be  tried  by 
Ills  fellows.  This  grievance  he  sufll'ers,  then,  not 
because  he  happens  to  be  a  Catholic,  but  because 
he  happens  to  be  an  Englishman  too.  And  is  this 
not  a  grievance?  Is  it  no  grievance  in  the  pre- 
sent state  of  Ireland  for  a  Catholic  to  be  in 
peril  of  being  put  on  his  trial  for  his  life  before  an 
Orange  Jury,  whose  deep  and  unmixed  hate  he 
cannot  claim  to  neutralize  by  the  introduction  of 
one  fellow  Catholic?  But,  even  here  in  England, 
if  you  believe  of  the  Roman  Catholic  what  you  say 
of  him,  he  is  not  safe  in  your  hands  on  his  deliver- 
ance for  life  or  death.  Branded  as  he  is  with  your 
suspicion  and  contempt,  as  a  persecutor  in  his 
faith,  and  as  a  traitor  to  his  allegiance  and  to 
his  oath,  how  can  you  enter  the  jury-box  with 
the  unprejudiced  feelings  of  his  peer  legally  com- 
petent to  pass  upon  his  case  ? 

Many  of  those  who  declaim,  and  some  of  those 
who  think  they  reason,  on  these  subjects,  believe 
that  there  is  some  law  which  enacts  in  so  many 
words  that  no  Roman  Catholic  shall  sit  in  either 
House  of  Parliament,  &c.  Now  there  is  no  such 
law.  There  are,  indeed,  declarations  concerning 
matters  of  spiritual  belief,  which  every  Member 
must  make  when  he  takes  his  seat,  and  to  which  we 
know  that  no  sincere  Roman   Catholic  can  sub- 


li 


45 

scribe.     Why,  then,  do  I  say  that  there  is  no  law 
that  enacts  that  he  shall  not  sit  in  Parliament, 
if    these    declarations    have,    in    fact,    the    same 
effect?     Simply  to  shew  that  these  declarations 
can  disqualify  him  only  so  long  as  he  shall  have 
virtue  enough  to  sacrifice  every  temporal  advan- 
tage to  his  honesty  and  his  reverence  for  the  obli- 
gations of  an  oath  and  an  affirmation.     And  yet  it 
has  been  advanced,  and  in   our  recollection  too, 
(although  I  must  say  for  our  opponents  in  Parlia- 
ment, that  1  believe  there  has  not  been  a  man  there 
for  many  years  that  would  hazard  such  an  opinion 
in  public,)  that  Roman  Catholics  keep  no  faith 
with  Protestants,  and  that  their  priests  will  ab- 
solve them  from  all  guilt  of  perjury  for  a  false  oath 
taken  to  advance  the   interests   of  their   church. 
Then  let  such  objectors  state  their  own  mode  of 
reasoning    fairly   and    intelligibly.      Thus :   We 
would  exclude  the  Papists  as  unworthy  of  trust, 
and  given  to  perjury.     We  therefore  desire  to  be 
enabled    to    exclude    them    by  tests  which  can 
exclude  only  those  who  are  incapable  of  deceiving 
us  or  forswearing  therr selves. 

We  make  treaties  with  Austria,  Spain,  France, 
Italy,  and  the  young  republics  of  South  America; 
we  toast  "  No  Popery,"  as  long  as  we  can  stammer, 
in  wine,  (ungrateful  as  we  are,)  the  very  creature 
of  a  treaty  with  Portugal ;  and  thus  we  admit  that 
engagements  are  binding  upon  them.  In  our  own 
country  we  act  upon  the  testimony  of  Catholics  in 


46 


47 


f  1 


cases  affecting  even  life  ;  and  thus  we  admit  that 
oaths  are  binding  upon  them.  We  established 
and  endowed  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  in 
Canada,  and  equality  of  privilege  has  been  given  to 
it  in  Hanover  by  the  same  August  Personage  that 
sways  the  sceptre  of  these  realms;  and  thus  it  is 
admitted  that  there  is  nothing  in  that  religion  to 
interfere  with  the  allegiance  of  subjects  to  His 
Majesty's  person  and  government. 

But  a  Roman  Catholic  is  an  idolater  !    In  what- 
ever terms  a  direct  and  total  denial  of  a  fact  can 
be  the  most  distinctly  expressed,  in  those  will  I  as 
a  Protestant  deny  and  repel  this  outrageous  impu- 
tation upon  my  fellow  Christians  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  persuasion.  In  one  sense,  indeed,  I  do  hold 
the  adoration  of  the  Consecrated  Elements  in  the 
sacriGce  of  the  Mass  to  be  idolatrous.     That  is, 
disbelieving  as  I  do  the  doctrine  of  Transubstan- 
tiation,  and  not  being  able  to  discover  authority  for 
addressing  the  throne  of  God  through  the  interces- 
sion of  Saints,  in  me  such  acts  would  be  idolatrous. 
But   in  Catholics,  who  believe  in  the  efficacy  of 
such  intercession,  it   is  the  more  reverential  ap- 
proach  to  the  Deity  through    those   means,  and 
therefore  not  idolatry  ;— in  Catholics,  who  believe 
in  the  actual  bodily  presence  of  the  Deity  in  the 
bread  and  wine,  it  is  the  worship  of  the  Deity  in 
those  elements,  and   therefore  not  idolatry.     But, 
as  a  specimen   of  the  tone  and  temper  in  which 
some    persons  permit   themselves  to  indulge  on 


>     1^      1 
t 


these  subjects,  here  is  a  monstrous  creed  of  three 
parts,  to  which  both  you  and  I  have  in  our  time 
heard  it  roundly  asserted  that  every  Roman  Catho- 
lic in  Christendom  subscribes: — A  creed  that  en- 
joins idolatry  ;  a  creed  that  annuls  all  bond  of  good 
faith  entered  into  with  heretics  ;  a  creed  that  justi- 
fies the  deposal  or  assassination  of  heretic  princes. 
Suppose  such   a  charge  were  published  against 
any  individual  of  that  persuasion.     Let  us  suppose 
a  libel  published,  not  against  the  Duke  of  Norfolk, 
nor  Lord  Shrewsbury,  nor  Lord  Arundell,  nor  any 
of  those  great  historical  names  the  very  mention  of 
which  has  too  much  the  sound  of  declamation,  but 
published  against  the  poorest,  meanest,   most  un- 
known man  in  England.     That  he  is  an  idolater  ; 
which,  if  believed,  would  subject  him  to  contempt 
and  reprobation  from  all  who  worship  an  eternal 
invisible  God.     That  he  regards  not  the  obligation 
of  his  word  or  his  oath  ;  which,  if  believed,  would 
banish  him  from  all  trust  and  communion  with  his 
fellow  creatures.     That  he  onlv  waits  the  occasion 
for  treason  or  murder  ;  the  greatest    of   crimes 
against  society,  and  the  only  crimes  against  which 
our  law  pronounces  a  sentence  extending  beyond 
death  itself.     Is  there  any  doubt  that  in  the  Court 
of  King's  Bench  any  jury  would  inflict  on  such  a 
libeller  the  severest  penalty  by  which   the  law  of 
England  protects  the  fortunes  and  fame  of  those 
who  live  within  its  influence?     The  libeller,  then, 
whose  fate  this  would  inevitablv  be  if  he  were  so 


'™^ 


48 

to  malign  any  one  human  being,  is  unpunished 
only  when  he  proclaims  the  slander  against  seven 
millions  and  more  of  British  subjects.  Idolatry 
is  the  breach  of  the  first  and  second  Command- 
ments ;  murder  is  the  breach  of  the  sixth ;  injustice 
and  fraud  of  the  eighth.  The  wilful,  deliberate, 
habitual,  rejection  of  four  Commandments  is  a 
serious  imputation  to  cast  upon  about  nineteen- 
twentieths  of  the  Christian  world.  We  should  do 
well  to  remember,  that  on  the  same  Divine  Autho- 
rity, and  in  the  same  Decalogue,  there  is  another 
Commandment,  "  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  wit- 
ness against  thy  neighbour." 

But  we  are  invited  to  look  at  certain  ancient 
Bulls  of  Popes,  and  Canons  of  Councils,  and 
Apophthegmsof  Popish  doctors.  I  have  occasionally 
so  done  ;  very  superficially,  certainly  ;  but,  if  I  had 
never  seen  one,  I  should  esteem  myself,  with  re- 
gard to  the  question  we  are  considering,  to  have 
made  by  so  much  a  more  profitable  use  of  my 
time;  and,  with  respect  to  any  practical  inference, 
I  say  it  not  carelessly  nor  flippantly,  but  very  much 
in  sober  earnest,  that  I  think  it  matter  of  very  un- 
necessary solicitude  what  they  may  contain,  [t 
appears  to  me  more  reasonable  to  judge  men  by 
the  evidence  of  their  conduct  than  by  that  of  im- 
puted tenets  of  discipline,  adopted,  if  ever  adopted 
^  at  all,  in  times  of  much  fury,  retained,  perhaps,  in 
a  spirit  of  some  obstinacy  aggravated  by  persecu- 
tion, and  construed  by  us  without  much  allowance 


■4,- 


I 


49 

for  the  spirit  of  the  times,  or  even  for  the  idiom  of 
the  lan«^uage  in  which  they  were  delivered.  Let 
us  make  it  our  own  case.  The  Church  of  England 
would  repel  with  anger  and  scorn,  and  most  justly, 
any  attempt  to  fix  upon  her  the  doctrine  of  Exclusive 
Salvation  ;  although  the  accusing  party  were  to  refer 
to  a  declaration  which  we  are  enjoined  to  make 
publicly  fourteen  times  in  the  year,  pronouncing 
that  all  who  differ  from  us  in  our  human  definition 
of  a  divine  mystery,  "  without  doubt  shall  perish 
"everlastingly.'*  The  Church  of  England  would 
repel  with  anger  and  scorn,  and  most  justly,  any 
attempt  to  fix  upon  her  the  doctrine  of  a  power  of 
Unconditional  Absolution  in  her  priests  ;  although 
the  accusing  party  were  to  refer  to  the  wording  of 
an  absolution  which  she  originally  derived  from  the 
Romish  Church,  but  which  she  uses  with  this  sin- 
irular  difference,  that  in  the  Romish  service  there  is  a 
material  condition  expressed,  which,  in  the  service 
of  the  Churchof  England,  has  been  omitted.*  Do  I 
say  thisin  reproach  of  our  Church?  Indeed  I  do  not. 
1  hope  I  am  as  firm  in  my  attachment  to  the  re- 
formed religion,  as  those  whose  protestantism  is  of 
a  more  exclusive  character.     But  I  believe  that 

*  Form  of  Ahsohition  in  the  service  for  the  Visitalionof  tl;e  Sick. 
After  exhortation  to  confession,  and  scltiiig  forth  God's  mercy  to 
tliose  who  rrpcnl,  it  proceeds,  "■  And  by  his  authority  romniitted  io 
•'  me,  I  absolve  tl.ee  from  all  thy  sins,  in  the  name,  &c."  In  the 
Romish  service,  throngiiout,  there  is  no  fi)rm  of  Absolution  to  which, 
in  the  body  of  the  absolving  clause  itself,  this  condition  is  not 
annexed  ;  "as  far  as  I  have  power,  and  tiiou  hast  need." 

D 


50 

there  never  was  a  code  of  Church  discipline  esta- 
blished and  upheld  by  human  institution,  however 
purified  by  the  efforts  of  good  men,  that  can  bear 
to  have  every  part  of  its  history,  nay  of  its  written 
law,  critically  and  hostUely  commented  upon. 

I  wish  to  direct  protestant  attention  particularly  to 
the  following  vow,  to  be  found,  doubtless  toourgreat 
scandal  and  peril,  on  the  books  of  an  order  which  has 
long  subsisted,  and  still  subsists,  in  this  land.  It  is 
taken  by  each  member  upon  his  admission  :  ''That 
*'  well  and  truly  he  shall  accomplish  and  entertain 
"all  the  statutes,  points,  and  ordinances;  and  of  all 
'*  this  shall  make  a  general  oath,  all  and  so  as  if 
•'  they  were  read  to  him  from  point  to  pointy  and 
^^from  article  to  article,  swearing  and  promising 
"  upon  the  Holy  Gospels  for  to  keep  and  entertain 
*'  them,  tcithout  any  fraud  or  delusion,  and  upon 
'*this  he  shall  touch  the  book,  and  kiss  the  Cross.'' 
Among  these  ordinances,  so  deeply  sworn  to,  I  find 
that,  having  duly  kept,  by  processions,  &c.  the 
feasts  and  vigils  of  certain  saints  (unless  such  feasts, 
&c  "  should  fall  out  on  any  fish-day  or  fasting-day," 
or  interfere  with  ''divine  service  ordained  by  the 
"  Holy  Church  for  the  double  feasts  of  St.  Mark, 
^'  Philip,  or  Jacob,  or  the  invention  of  the  Holy 
"  Cross,")  every  member  is  bound,  on  the  feast  of 
the  patron  saint  of  the  order,  to  "go  and  hear 
"divine  service  solemnly  sung  for  the  souls  of  all 
"  the  members  of  the  order  tchich  be  departed  and 
^^  deceased,  and  for  all  Christian  souls."'      Also, 


ji 


5J 

that  thirteen  clerks  and  thirteen  choristers  are  now^ 
maintained,  in  this  protestant  land,  and  in  a  county 
adjoining  to  our  own,  and  fearfully  near  to  the 
person  of  his  most  sacred  Majesty  himself,  at  the 
charge  of  the  same  order,  "for  to  sing  and  to  pray 
"  unto  God  for  the  prosperity  of  the  order,  and  also 
"for  the  souls  of  all  the  order  departed^  and  for  all 
"  Christian  souls.''  To  these  Popish  observances, 
a  o-reat  number  of  the  first  men  of  this  country, 
(some  of  whose  names  would  be  thought  a  suflfi- 
cient  security  against  such  encroachments,)  are 
bound  by  solemn  and  stringent  oath  "  for  to  keep 
"and  entertain  them  without  fraud  or  delusion," 
except  in  such,  from  which,  by  a  later  provision, 
they  "  shall  have  received  a  dispensation"  ivom  the 
supreme  head  of  the  order.  And  no  dispensation 
from  these  observances,  as  I  find  upon  anxious  en- 
quiry, is  ever  given,  although  (what  makes  it 
worse)  dispensations  are  regularly  given  upon  other 
minor  points,  by  no  means  affecting  any  of  these 
religious  duties,  under  the  whole  weight  of  which, 
therefore,  the  members  of  this  order  are  left.*  This 
is  not  the  society  of  Jesuits  at  Stoneyhurst,  nor, 
as  I  am  credibly  informed,  are  the  principal  obliga- 
tions of  this  oath  observed.  But  why  are  they  not? 
and  why  are  the  illustrious  members  of  this  order 
not  therefore  held  perjured?    Why,  because  we  do 

*  See  the    oath   of  the  Knights  Companions  of  the  Order   of 
the  Garter.    Statute  12,  et  seq. 


I 


62 

not  judge  men  by  words  only,  but  by  the  fair, 
honest,  customary  meaning  of  an  engagement,  as 
explained  by  the  genius  of  the  times,  and  ex- 
plained by  the  known  interpretation  put  upon  it  by 
the  parties  who  undertake,  and  by  those  who 
impose  it.  I  only  ask  the  same  liberal  interpreta- 
tion of  the  obsolete  obligations  of  all  other  Popish 
ordinances. 

fn  stating  opinions  upon  a  general  and  elemen- 
tary view  of  so  large  a  subject  as  this,  it  is  difficult 
to  keep  within  the  limits  of  a  few  of  the  principal 
objections  popularly  urged  by  our  adversaries.  To 
take,  one  by  one,  all  that,  at  different  times,  have 
been  grounded  upon  irrelevant  apprehensions,  upon 
inconclusive  premises,  or  upon  imperfect  or  untrue 
information,  is  a  task  to  which,  fortunately  for  the 
patience  of  readers,  the  memory  of  the  writer 
cannot  extend.  Am  I  desired  to  say  one  word 
upon  that  strangest  of  all  grounds  of  hesitation, 
the  wording  of  the  Coronation  Oath?  I  should 
think  not  ;  plainly  because  the  Coronation  Oath 
cannot  be  tortured  into  bearing  any  reference 
to  this,  or  to  any  other  question  that  can 
ever  become  matter  of  legislative  interference.  It 
is  among  those  observations  which  no  man  can  be 
found  to  make,  who  has  the  slightest  recollection 
gf  what  the  station  is  that  the  sovereign  of  England 
bears  in  the  constitution,  as  one  of  the  three  legis- 
lative powers  of  the  realm,  or  who  has  ever  read 


53 

that  Oath  itself,  and  the  debates  upon  its  framing 
and  enactment.     I  will  say,  then,  on  this  subject, 
one  word  only,  and  it  shall  be  one  of  reference.     I 
refer     to    the    debates     of    those    who     framed 
the  Oath,  to  show  that,  though  such  a  cavil  was 
not  unforeseen  by  them,  it  was  dismissed  as  too 
flimsy  to  call  for  even  a  proviso,  and  that  Mr. 
Somers,  Mr.  Finch,  Mr.  Treby,  Sir  Robert  Sawyer, 
Mr.  Hampden,  and  your  own  ancestor.  Sir  Thomas 
Lee,  and  all  the  others  who  took  a  part  in  that  great 
discussion,although  differing  as  to  the  mode  of  word- 
ing the  oath,  yet  were  unanimous  in  their  opinion  of 
the  absurdity  of  supposing  that  any  one  of  the  three 
branches  of  the  le2:islature  could  binditself  b\  oath 
against  passing  any  bill  that  might  hereafter  at  any 
time  appear  to  be  just  or  expedient  to  the  Common- 
wealth.*    The  Coronation  Oath  merely  obliges  the 
sovereign,  as  the  first  magistrate  in  the  state,  to 
observe  and  execute  the  laws  ;  and  an  amendment 
and  proviso  were  rejected  by  those  to  whom  we 
must  look  as y?r5/ authority  to  expound, — namely 
the  framers  of  it, — distinctly  upon   this   ground, 
that  '^ii  cannot  be  imagined  that  any  bill  from 
''parliament  can  ever  go  to  destroy  the  legislative 
**  power." 

And  here  I  take   leave  of  the  subject   of  the 

*  Debates  on  going  into  Committee  of  tlie  House  of  Commons  on 
the  Coronation  Oath,  and  on  the  third  reading  of  the  same,  1693. 
— Cobbctt's  Parliamentary  History,  vol.  5,  page  199  c<  5C7.  and 
page  208,  et  seq. 


I 


54 

objections  the  most  generally  urged,  on  which  if  I 
have  been  tedious  I  cannot  consent  to  take  more 
than  one  half  of  the  bhime,  dividing  it  with  those 
by  whom  such  objections  are  generally  put  forward. 
We  may,  I  think,  collect  from  what  we  know  of 
the  ordinary  feelings  of  men,  that,  by  admitting  all 
to  a  community  of  political  benefits,  we  should  re- 
move a  material  impediment  that  now  presents 
itself  to  the  advances  of  proselytism  to  our  esta- 
blished mode  of  worship ;  particularly  assuming, 
as  we  do,  that  it  is  the  purest,  and  tliat  the  dis- 
franchised mode  is  supported  only  by  superstition 
and  priestcraft.  By  external  pressure  and  restraint 
things  are  compacted  as  well  in  the  moral  as  in  the 
physical  world.  Where  a  sect  is  at  spiritual 
variance  with  the  Established  Church,  it  only  re- 
quires an  abridgment  of  civil  privileges  to  render 
it  at  once  a  political  faction.  Its  members  become 
instantly  pledged,  some  from  enthusiasm,  some 
from  resentment,  and  many  from  honourable 
shame,  to  cleave  w  Ith  desperate  fondness  to  the  suf- 
fering fortunes  of  an  hereditary  religion.  Is  this 
human  nature,  or  is  it  not?  Is  it  a  natural  or 
an  unnatural  feeling  for  the  representative  of 
an  ancient  Roman  Catholic  family,  even  if  in  his 
heart  he  rejected  the  controverted  tenets  of  his 
early  faith,  to  scorn  an  open  conformity  to  our's, 
so  long  as  such  conformity  brings  with  it  the  irre- 
moveable  suspicion  that  faith  and  conscience  may 
have  bowed  to  the  base  hope  of  temporal  advantage. 


65 

Every  man  must  feel  and  act  for  himself:  but,  in 
my  opinion,  a  good  man  might  be  put  to  difficulty 
to  determine  whether  more  harm  is  not  done  by 
the  example  of  one  changing  his  religion  to  his 
worldly  advantage,  than  good  by  his  openly  pro- 
fessing conformity  from   what  we  think  error  to 
what  we  think  truth.     Whether,  with  no  advan- 
tages of  superior  privilege,  the  Reformed  Church 
would  attract  converts  from  that  of  Rome,  it  is  not 
my  purpose  to  dispute :    we  must  hope  that  she 
would.  But,  in  this  respect,  she  has  not  now  a  fair 
chance  in   the  mind   of  any   Catholic   who  feels 
what  is  due  to  his  public  reputation.    To  be  useful 
to  the  state,  he    must  not  only  respect  his  own 
motives  in  conforming,  but  must  teach  others  to 
respect  them  also.     All,  then,  who  give  proof  of 
their    virtue    by    resisting    temptation,     we,    as 
far    as    we    can,    render    useless    to   the     state 
by     disfranchisement.      All     who    conform     we 
render    suspicious,    if    not    criminal,    and    thus 
useless   the   other   way.      Add   to  this,  that  we 
employ  the  very  means  the  most  likely  to  place 
them  under  the  absolute  dominion  of  their  priests. 
We  take  from  them  every  object  of  honourable 
ambition  ;  we  doom  them   to  the  martyrdom,  as 
far  as  our  laws  have  power  to  inflict  it,  of  popular 
scorn  from  the  cradle  to  tlie  grave  ;  we  leave  them 
a  separate  class,  without  one  public  occupation,  or 
one  aspiring  hope,  in  the  midst  of  a  busy  and 


56 

ardent-spirited  people,  and  then  we  are  astonished 
if  they  make  a  proud  display  of  what,  failing  to  bo 
a  stigma  of  reprobation,   has  become  to  them  a 
badge  of  honourable  suffering,  and,  if  tiiey  submit 
themselves    with    peculiar   devotedness  to   those 
teachers  who  suffer  with  tliem  for  conscience  sake. 
Depend    upon  it,  that  although  great  persecution, 
"coming  down   like  the  wolf  on  the  fold,"  may 
scatter  and  destroy  the  flock,  little  persecution  is 
the  surest  watch-dog  to  keep  them  together.     We 
bark  round  them,  and  scare  and  hem  them  in  from 
that  association  of  feelings  and   pursuits,   which 
would  naturally  blend  them  into  one  people  and 
kindred  with  ourselves.      It   was  thus  with   the 
Huguenots  in  France  ;  it  was  thus  with  the  Pro- 
testants in  Holland  under  the  Spanish  government, 
and  afterwards   with  the  Catholics   in    Holland, 
under  the  Stadtholders.    It  w^as  thus  with  the  Cove- 
nanters in  Scotland ;  and  thus  it  has  ever  been 
with  a  people,  whom,  in  our  fear  and  distress,  we 
have  flattered, — in  our  security,  we  have  insulted 
and  oppressed, — in  our  adversity,  we  have  told  to 
hope, — in  our  prosperity,  wc  have  left  to  despair, 
— our  own  unhappy  and  much-injured  people  of 
Ireland. 

The  Huguenots  were  long  a  persecuted  body  in 
France.  When  they  were  many  and  strong,  they 
strove  to  regain  their  rights  by  the  sword;  when 
they  were  few  and  weak,  by  secret  and  patient 


57 


machination.  Thus  they  were  whilst  excluded  ; 
they  ceased  to  be  so  when  restored  to  their  natural 
station  and  functions  as  citizens.  They  were 
twice  excluded  and  twice  restored,  and  at  each 
trial  the  result  was  the  same  ;  until,  finally,  a  just 
and  healing  policy  gave  to  their  great  men,  to 
their  Conde,  Catinat,  and  Turenne,  the  pri- 
vilege of  employing  their  talents  for  their  country's 
glory,  and  in  part  repaired  the  mischiefs  which  the 
revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  had  caused  her, 
by  dooming  her  protestant  subjects,  soldiers,  arti- 
sans, and  statesmen,  to  exile,  or  to  disgust  and 
alienation  at  home. 

Nearly  the  same  was  the  history  of  the  Pro- 
testants of  Hungary  before  the  decrees  of  the 
Empress  Maria  Theresa  and  of  the  Emperor  Joseph 
the  Second  in  their  behalf;  while  the  history  of 
Scotland  and  the  Covenant  is  unprofitably  indeed 
read  by  those  who  fail  to  learn  from  it  Viow  fearful 
is  the  policy  that  would  govern  by  exacting  ob- 
servances repugnant  to  popular  prejudice  or  re- 
ligious scruple.  Archbishop  Laud  attempted  by 
force  the  overthrow  of  the  Kirk :  he  made  religion 
a  state  engine :  he  failed  to  produce  conformity  : 
he  did  produce  civil  war.  He  kindled  a  torch  in 
Scotland,  which  he  lived  to  see  spread  a  confla- 
gration through  the  empire,  and  involve  in  utter 
destruction  the  hierarchy  and  monarchy  of  this 
country.     It  was  near  half  a  century  before,  by 


r 


*i;lj 


58 


establishing   Presbyterianism    in    Scotland,    that 

tranquillity  was  restored,  which  might  have  been 

preserved   by  allowing  to  the  Presbyterians  their 

civil  rights  and  privileges  untouched  by  the  tests 
of  our  own  Church. 

But  Ireland, — poor  Ireland  ! — that  melancholy 
monument  of  centuries  of  misgovernment !    From 
the  earliest  times  of  her  connexion  with  England, 
her  character  has   been   mistaken,  her  affections 
outraged,  and  her  hopes  cruelly  and  foully  betrayed. 
By  the  treaty  of  Limerick,  1693,  it  was  stipulated 
that  their  Majesties  should  endeavour  to  procure 
from   parliament  the   re-admission  of    the    Irish 
Catholics  to  all  the  privileges  they  enjoyed  under 
Charles  II.;  that  they  should  have  their  property 
restored  ;  and  should  have  liberty  to  keep  arms  in 
their  houses  for  their  defence.     On  the  faith  of 
this,  and  other  conditions,  Limerick  surrendered  to 
a   general   who  had  received   instructions    from 
government  to  grant  any  terms,  that  so  the  war 
might  be  ended.     And  though  the  French  fleet 
appeared  off  the  mouth  of  the  Shannon  before  the 
city  was  taken  possession  of,  the  brave  garrison  re- 
fused to  tarnish  their  honour  by  breaking  the  Ca- 
pitulation which  their  governor  had  signed.    Alas, 
for  our  part  in  that  history  !    No  endeavours  were 
ever  used,  such  as  kings  sometimes  use  with  par- 
liaments; no  property  was  restored ;  but  further  con- 
fiscations were  the  same  year  made,  in  behalf  of  the 


k 


59 


very  officers  in  the  conquering  army  who  were 
parties  to  the  treaty ;  and,  in  1703.  an  act  was 
passed,  enabling  any  man,  by  conformity,  to  rob 
his  Catholic  father,  brother,  or  most  distant  kins- 
man, of  his  whole  property;  and  oaths  were  im- 
posed, against  w^hich  the  Irish  had  been  expressly 
protected  by  the  Ninth  Article  of  the^  Treaty.* 
And  are  we  surprised  that  the  Irish  are  firmly 
Roman  Catholics,  or  firmly  anything  which  we  are 
not,  and  which  it  has  been  the  object  of  our  in- 
effectual violence  for  centuries  to  make  them  ?  A 
country  which  has  ever  been  ruled  as  a  conquered 
province ;  which  we  never  indulged  with  a  hope, 
but  when  we  had  some  temporary  advantage  to 
secure ;  which  we  never  gratified  with  a  boon,  but 
when  we  had  some  temporary  danger  to  fear.  Is 
this  over-stated  ?  If  our  concessions  do  not  always 
stand  in  the  relation  to  our  necessities  of  effect  to 
cause,  at  least  the  coincidence  has  always  been  such 
as  to  impress  the  Irish  with  an  opinion,  the  most 
perilous  which  a  nation  can  well  conceive,  that  all 
which  has  hitherto  been  gained  for  them,  has 
been  gained  by  alarm,  and  nothing  from  sympathy, 
grace,  or  sense  of  justice.*!*    And  the  union  !  Foully 

♦  For  the  History  and  Articles  of  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  see 
Parnell's  Hist,  of  the  Penal  Laws,  page  4,  et  seq.  And  the  several 
arguments  of  Sir  T.  Butler,  Counsellor  Malone,  and  Sir  Stephen 
Rice,  before  ihe  parliament  of  Ireland,     Id.  Appendix,  No.  1. 

t  Four  great  acts  have  passed  for  relieving  them  from  active  per- 
secution :  the  first  in  1778,  during  the  struggle  with  America,  when 
the  cause  of  the  United  States  was  becoming  formidably  popular  in 


i 


60 

was  Ireland  cheated  of  the  one  great  benefit  licld 
out  to  her  as  the  price  of  that  Act,  which,  whatever 
may  have  been  its  merits  as  a  measure  of  imperial 
policy,  deprived  her  of  the  last  jewel  of  her  ancient 
crown,  deprived  her  of  the  pride  of  separate 
legislation,  and  effaced  her  name  from  the  catalogue 
of  nations.  The  Irish  parliament  bargained  with 
Eno"land  to  surrender  its  own  existence  and  the  in- 
dependence  of  its  country  for  advantages  of  no 
fanciful  sort,  which  were  duly  paid  to  the  majority 

Ireland,  and  imniedialely  after  the  news  of  General  lUirgoyne's 
defeat  at  Saratoga.    The  sc«^on<l,  in  1783,  shortly  after  the  recog- 
nition  of  American  independence,  and  when  deputies  from  sixty 
thousand  men  in  arms, — the  volunteers  of  Ireland,— had  held  their 
memorable  convention  at  Diingannon,  to  petition  for  a  redress  of 
grievances.    The  third,  in   1791,  soon  after  the  formation  of  the 
National  Convention  in  France,  and  when  corresponding  societies 
were  widely  established  in  England  and  Ireland.  The  fourth,  in  1793, 
immediately  after  theFrenchDecree  of  Fraternization,and  the  bloody 
tragedy  of  tlie  Freach  King's  death,  which  had  taken  place  in  the 
preceding  January.     In  1792,  a  petition  for  onh/  a  limited  Elective 
Franchise  was  rejected  by  a  large  majority  of  the  Irish  parliament, 
every  corporation  in  Ireland  exi)ressing  a  desire  for  the  perpetunl 
exclusion  of  the  Roman  Catholic  body.  The  ses.sion  of  1793  opened 
with  a  speech  from  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  Lord  Westmoreland,  re- 
commending the  concession  of  the  Elective  Franchise,  cn/iV^,  which 
was  accordingly  carried.     In  1795,  Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  sent  over 
as  Lord  Lieutenant,  to  grant  further  concessions,  and  settle  public 
discontents;  on  the  strength  of  which  the  largest  supply  was  voted 
that  ever  passed  an  Irish  parliament.     The  supply  being  granted. 
Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  recalled,  and  the  subject  of  further  concessions 
not  revived,  until  it  became  desirable  to  urge  with  efl'ect  the  question 
of  a  Legislative  Union.     See  Lord  Fitzwilliam's  Letter  to  Lord 
Carlile,   published   1795,  and  his  Protest  in  the  English  House  oC 
Lords  the  same  year. 


61 

of  that  assembly,  before  the  majority  voted  for  the 
union.  But  Cathoh'c  Emancipation  was  the  con- 
sideration held  out  to  the  people,  and  the  people 
were  cajoled.  The  sale  was  completed,  the  transfer 
made;  and  we  have  not  fulfilled  our  part  of  the 
engagement.  In  honour  and  in  good  faith,  we  owe 
Catholic  Emancipation  to  Ireland.* 

♦  Catholic  Emancipation  was  not  directli/  promised  to  the  Irish  as 
a  condition  of  the  union  j  but  they  were  encouraged  in  the  belief  ih^i 
it  was  a  condition.  By  many  of  the  supporters  of  the  government 
in  Ireland  at  that  time  it  was  so  described  ;  and,  by  government  itself, 
the  Union  and  Emancipation  were  always  spoken  of  to  the  Catholics 
as  parts  together  of  one  great  policy.  In  1797,  while  the  question  of 
Union  was  in  agitation,  Dr.  Duigenan  published  his  ''  Letter  to 
Mr.  Grattaii,"  from  which  the  following  passage  is  an  extract :  *'  If 
•*  we  were  one  people  with  the  British  Nation,  the  preponderance  of 
**  tiie  Protestant  interest  in  the  whole  state  would  be  so  great,  that 
''it  would  be  no  longer  necessary  to  curb  the  Roman  Catholics  bij  any 
''restraint  whatever:'  And  yet  after  the  Union,  the  Doctor  con- 
tinued to  the  year  of  his  death  an  eager  opponent  in  Parliament  of 
every  measure  of  concession  to  the  Roman  Catholics.  What  said 
Mr,  Put  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  when  explaining  the  causes  of  his 
resignation  in  1801  ?  **  A  measure  on  the  part  of  government  which, 
"  under  the  circumstances  of  the  Union  so  happily  effected  between 
**  the  two  countries,  we  thought  of  great  public  importance,  and 
"  necessary  to  complete  the  benefits  likely  to  result  from  that  mea- 
sure. We  felt  this  opinion  so  strongly  that,  when  we  met  with 
"  circumstances  that  rendered  it  impossible  for  us  to  propose  it  as 
'*H  measure  of  government,  we  felt  it  equally  inconsistent  with  our 
"  duty  and  our  honour  any  longer  to  remain  a  part  of  that  govern- 
"  ment.  What  may  be  the  opinion  of  others  I  know  not,  but  I  hto- 
'■'  to  have  it  understood  to  be  a  measure  which,  if  I  had  remained  in  go- 
"  verrunent,  I  must  have  proposed/'  Among  the  written  declarations 
from  Mr.  Pitt  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  (Lord  CornwaJlis,)  and  from 
him  to  Lord  Fingal,  and  the  principal  Catholics,  in  1801,  are  these. 
"*  They  may  be  assured  that  Mr.  Pitt  will  do  hig  utmost  to  establish 

2 


<( 


*i 


I' 


62 

How  stands  it  in  Policy  ?  We  find  a  people 
strongly  attached  to  a  creed  to  which  we  impute 
much  bigotry  and  superstition.  We  have  entirely 
subdued  the  country.  And  now,  as  if  the  recollec- 
tion  of  national  independence  destroyed  were  not 
sufficiently  galling,  we  add  to  it  the  whole  fury  of 
religious  zeal,  in  behalf  of  a  creed  insulted  and 
rendered  the  mark  of  hopeless  degradation.  But 
though  we  have  deprived  three-fourths  of  the  Irish 
people  of  their  privileges  as  citizens,  they  cherish 
unimpaired,  and  strong  to  an  extentwhich  wein  this 
country  very  imperfectly  conceive,  the  memorials 
of  their  warm  affections  and  their  deep  resentment. 
Their  mouldering  churches,  the  rude  and  shapeless 
sepulchres  of  their  fathers,  their  traditionary  rites 
and  customs,  the  very  hills  of  their  romantic  land, 
consecrated  as  they  are  by  the  wild  traces  of  their 
ancient  worship,  are  so  many  links  that  bind  a 
warm-hearted  people  to  a  persecuted  faith.  And 
while  the  remembrance  of  country,  parents,  and 
early  days,  is  dear  and  sacred,  woe  to  the  power 

'*  their  cause  in  the  public  favor,  and  prepare  the  way  for  their 
"finally  attaining  their  object.  On  the  other  hand,  should 
"the  Catholics  be  sensible  of  the  benefit  they  possess  by  having  so 
**  many  characters  of  eminence  pledged  not  to  embark  in  the  sei-vice  of 
*'  government f  except  on  the  terms  of  the  Catholic  privileges  being 
"  obtained,  \i  is  to  be  hoped  that,  on  balancing  the  advantages  and 
**  disailvantages  of  their  situation,  they  would  prefer  a  quiet  and 
'*  peaceable  demeanour  to  any  line  of  conduct  of  an  opposite  de- 
scription." See  Debrett's  Debates,  vol.  14,  page  161,  and  Parnell's 
History  of  the  Penal  Laws,  page  1.56. 


63 

that  would  sever  them.  Providence,  wiser  than 
man  in  his  jealousy  and  pride,  has  decreed  that 
they  cannot  be  severed  ;  they  are  drawn  closer,  and 
rivetted  by  persecution. 

Till  lately  the  great  majority  of  the  population 
of  Ireland,  separated  from  their  own  clergy,  and 
restrained  by  a  severe  code  from  practising  their 
own  religion,  were  practically  deprived  of  all 
means  of  religious  observance,  unless  where,  at 
the  hazard  of  their  lives,  they  assembled  in  caverns 
and  fastnesses  to  worship  God  in  all  the  secresy 
and  all  the  peril  that  could  belong  to  an  act  of  the 
blackest  guilt.  And,  to  perfect  this  monstrous 
system,  they  were,  by  the  same  enactments,  (unless 
they  w  ould  conform  to  that  creed  which  they  could 
know  only  as  the  symbol  of  grinding  oppression,) 
excluded  even  from  the  benefits  of  education  in 
their  own  country.  And  what  was  the  result  1 
That,  unable  to  obtain  education  in  their  own 
country,  they  sought  and  found  it  under  the  pro- 
tection of  foreign  courts  ;  and  then  you  wondered 
that  foreio^n  courts  should  obtain  an  influence amons* 
Irish  Catholics.  That,  precluded  from  serving  as 
officers  in  the  armies  of  their  own  country,  they 
sought  renown,  and  found  it  under  foreign  banners  ; 
and  then  you  wondered  at  the  disloyalty  of  the 
Irish  who  bore  arms  for  France,  for  Austria,  and 
for  Spain.  But  it  was  not  wonder  that  was  ex- 
pressed in  the  memorable  exclamation  which  is 
attributed  to  George  the  Second,  when  the  valour 


G4 

of  the  Irish  brigade  in  the  service  of  France,  at 
Fontenoy,  had  turned  the  fortunes  of  the  day  in 
favour  of  the  enemy,  ''Cursed  be  the  laws  which 

« 

have  deprived  me  of  such  subjects  !" 

It  is  in  the  following  terms  that  one  whom    I 
have  before  quoted,  an  ornament  of  his  time,  a 
writer    wMth    a  learned  and  eloquent  pen,  and  a 
truly  British  heart,  although  an  Irishman,  a  Roman 
Catholic,  and  a  priest,  has  deplored  the  condition 
of  his  brethren  in  a  letter  which  I  wish  that  many, 
who  now  determine  on  these  matters  without  seeing 
-  or  reading,  and  without  mvch  thinking,  would  first 
read  and  then  think  over.     It  is  by  Arthur  O'Leary, 
and  entitled  ''  Loyalty  asserted."     *'  Incapable  and 
"  unwilling  to  hurt  the  public, — willing  and  inca- 
'•'  pable  to  serve  it, — equally  destitute  of  property, 
"and  arms  to  defend  it,  our  duty  is  confined  to 
"  passive  loyalty  enforced  by  religion.     Let  interest, 
"  let  liberty,  step  in  as  an  active  principle,  and  you 
"  will  not  find  one  Catholic  in  the  kingdom  but 
"  will  be  as  sanguine  as  yourself  in  the  defence  of 
"  his  substance  and  the  common    cause   against 
"Pope  or  Pretender."     And,  even  now,  knowing 
our  church  only  as  an  establishment  by  whose  tests 
political  incapacity  is  imposed  on  them,  knowing  its 
clergy  only  ashmen  who,  rarely  seen  by  them,  are 
yet  supported  by  very  unequal  and  heavy  tythes, 
the  poor  Irish  are  subjects  of  an  unhappy  country, 
infuriated  by  party  spirit,  and  disunited   by  the 
very  principles  of  its  government,  where  the  pri- 


V 


65 

vileged  few  maintain  a  precarious  rule  over  a 
proscribed  and  offended  majority  of  millions,  by 
division  and  by  violence.  "  The  people  of  Con- 
"  stantinople,"  says  Montesquieu,  in  a  passage  too 
closely  applicable  to  the  state  of  parties  in  the 
capital  of  our  little  Western  Empire,  "  were  from 
*'all  times  divided  into  two  factions ;  that  of  the 
"Blues,  and  that  of  the  Greens.  They  went  to 
"the  annihilating  the  authority  of  the  magis- 
"trates.  The  Blues  did  not  fear  the  laws,  be- 
"  cause  the  Emperor  sheltered  them  from  the 
"  law  s.  The  Greens  ceased  to  respect  the  laws, 
"  because  the  laws  could  no  longer  protect  them. 
"All  ties  of  friendship,  kindred,  duty,  gratitude, 
"were  loosed.  A  government  so  senseless  was 
"  still  more  cruel."* 

"  But  what  you  ask  for  the  Catholic,"  say  some 
objectors,  "  is  of  no  value  to  him.  Is  the  poor 
"  Irish  peasant  to  be  benefited  by  what  can  reach 
"  only  a  few  of  their  nobility  and  gentry?  Their 
"  priests  and  demagogues  use  it  only  as  a  topic  of 
''irritation.     They  would  lose  their  importance  by 

• 

*  **  Le  peuple  de  Constantinople  etoit  de  tout   temps  divise  en 

'*  deux  factions,  celle  des  bleus,  et  celle  des  verts Elles  allerent 

*' jusqu'k  aneantir  l*autorite  des  magistrats.  L^s  bleus  ne  ciaig^noient 
"point  les  lois,  parceque  TEmpereur  les  protegoit  contre  elles. 
**  Les  verts  cesserent  de  les  respecter  parcequ'ellcs  ne  pouvoient 

"  pas  lesdefendre Tons  les  liens  d'amitie,  de  parente,  de  devoir, 

"  de  reconnoisance,  furent  otes.  Un  governement  si  peu  sense  etoit 
•*  encore  plus  cruel." — Moniesquuu^  Grandeur  et  Decadence  des 
Homains, 


£ 


66 


*^  the  success  of  the  measure,  and,  therefore,  in  their 
"  hearts  deprecate  it."  First  observe  that  these 
objectors  are  bound  in  honour  never  again  to  open 
their  lips  on  the  subject  of  danger.  But  lives  there 
a  man  who  does  not  feel  the  difference  between  the 
knowing  that  there  are  stations  for  which  he  per- 
sonally is  unfit,  and  the  being  told  that  he  belongs 
to  a  class  declared  unworthy  to  fill  these  stations? 
If  there  be  any  one  so  ignorant  of  all  the  springs 
that  govern  human  action  and  feeling,  I  despair  of 
making  him  understand  any  one  of  the  real  re- 
maining grievances  of  Catholic  disability. 

We  are  told  by  others  that  the  demands  of  the 
Catholics  increase  upon  us  ;  that  they  are  insatiable. 
If  I  have  succeeded  in  shewing  that  their  condition 
is  an  unjust  one,  inasmuch  as  you  cannot  make  out  a 
case  of  absolute  necessity  to  justify  it,  I  submit  that 
you  have  no  more  right  to  delay  the  doing  them 
justice  than  you  would  have  to  refuse  to  pay  a  just 
debt  because  your  creditor  happens  to  complain 
in  a  tone  which  you  do  not  approve,  or  because 
you  believe  that,  after  you  shall  have  paid  him 
what  you  owe  him,  he  may  set  up  a  further  claim 
which  he  will  not  be  able  to  make  good.  We  are 
told,  above  all,  of  the  power  which  their  priests 
possess,  and  of  the  use  they  have  made  of  it,  by 
their  influence  over  the  small  life-holders  at  the 
late  elections  in  Ireland.  It  not  being  within  my 
present  purpose  to  give  any  opinion  between  the 
priest    and    the    landlord,    or    in     other    words 


67 


to  determine,  (although  I  have  an  opinion  on 
that  matter,)  whether  fanaticism  or  corruption 
be  the  greater  fault  in  an  elector^  (which  is  the 
real  question  with  respect  to  the  AOs.  voters 
in  Ireland,)  I  will  content  myself  with  saying  this, 
that  it  shews  that  Ireland  has  now  arrived  at  a 
state  in  which  she  cannot  remain.  You  must  re- 
enact  the  penal  laws,  or  emancipate. 

I  am  desired  to  look  at  whatever  passages  our 
adversaries  please  to  select  for  animadversion  from 
certain  speeches  of  Mr.  O'Connel  or  Mr.Shiel,  and 
to  judge  by  these  of  the  general  temper  of  the  Catho- 
lic body.  If  the  Irish  are  very  violent,  and  do  not 
express  themselves  as  we  could  vyish,  touching  the 
advantages  of  English  connexion,  I  can  only  say  that 
it  is  what  the  friends  of  this  healing  measure  have 
been  prophesying  for  full  twenty  years  of  my  own 
recollection,  and  had,  I  understand,  prophesied  for 
about  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  before  that.  We 
are  bound  to  express  our  sorrow  at  the  circum- 
stance, but  it  is  hard  to  call  upon  us  to  express 
surprize  also,  at  the  accomplishment  of  our  own 
predictions.  But  if  these  gentlemen  have  occa- 
sionally spoken  in  terms  which  I  cannot  approve, 
I  will  not  judge,  for  I  am  not  warranted  in  judging, 
by  them  of  the  general  temper  of  the  Catholic  body. 
I  rejoice  that  the  oppressed  Catholics  have  bold 
and  eloquent  men  to  plead  for  their  rights.  But  I 
know  of  no  right  that  I  have  to  try  the  Catholic 
community  by  the  expressions  of  those  gentlemen, 

e2 


I 


68 

which  those  gentlemen  would  not  equally  have  to 
try  the  Protestant  community  by  mine  ;  against 
which  I  suspect  that  many  Protestants  would  very 
loudly  and  very  justly  protest.  But  I  will  not 
judge  of  the  temper  even  of  Mr.  O'Connel  or  Mr. 
Shiel,  by  Mr.  O'Connel's  or  Mr.  Shiel's  effu- 
sions. They  are  members  of  a  body  which  is  per- 
secuted and  misrepresented  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  be 
extreme  with  the  words  of  a  man  under  persecution 
and  misrepresentation.  We  have  heard  that  it 
was  a  practice  of  the  inquisition  to  put  Jews  to  the 
torture,  till,  by  reason  of  pain,  they  openly  blas- 
phemed, and  then  to  punish  them  for  the  blasphemy  ; 
but  neither  the  institution  nor  the  practice  is  in  ray 
mind  one  of  laudable  example. 

Our  adversaries  are  the  first  to  proclaim  that  it  is 
high  time  that  this  question  were  settled  one  way  or 
the  other.  Now  there  can  be  but  one  way  of  settling 
it.  If  they  were  to  tell  me  that  it  is  expedient  that 
this  question  shall  continue  a  question  of  eternal 
bickering,  eternal  expence,  and  eternal  disaffection, 
that  it  is  convenient  that  Ireland  shall  continue  to 
be  alienated,  and  England  taxed  to  pay  for  holding 
Ireland  by  force  instead  of  by  affection  ;  I  should 
not  agree  with  them  in  their  opinion  ;  but  T  should 
at  least  comprehend  it.  But  when  they  say  '^  settle 
**it  one  way  or  the  other,"  it  is  a  truly  Irish  alter- 
native that  they  propose,  with  only  one  side  to  it, 
and  that  the  side  directly  opposed  to  their  own  de- 
clared wishes. 


69 

Does  any  man  seriously  and  soberly  hold  the 
opinion  that  the  measure  will  not  be  carried  before 
he,  or  Mr.  O'Connel,  or  Mr.  Shiel,  shall  be  manv 
years  older  ?  I  believe  few  men  will  say  so. 
Then,  to  feel  assured  of  the  probability  of  its 
being  granted  in  our  day,  and  still  to  do  all  that  is 
possible  to  keep  alive  by  insult  those  heated  feelings 
on  both  sides,  which  can  but  aggravate  difficulties, 
I  must  say  appears  to  me  little  short  of  madness. 
We  shout  ''  No  Pope,"  and  "  No  Popery,"  as  if  the 
question  really  were  whether  we  should  or  should 
not  endure  the  existence  of  such  a  being  as  a  Pope, 
or  of  such  a  profession  as  that  which  we  call  Popery. 
That  there  is  a  Pope,  whom  it  is  not,  I  apprehend, 
our  immediate  purpose  to  depose,  is  matter  of 
fact ;  it  is  also  fact  that  there  are  near  6,000,000 
persons  in  Ireland,  who  are  very  willing  to  call 
themselves  and  their  religion  Roman  Catholic, 
but  whom  we  insist,  not  very  wisely  as  it  appears 
to  me,  upon  calling  Papists,  and  their  religion 
Popery  ;*  and  whom  I  apprehend  we  have  no  imme- 
diate prospect  of  either  exterminating:  by  force,  or 
converting  by  abuse.  Their  numbers  increase;  their 
obstinacy  holds  out  against  persecution  ;  and  their 
fecundity  is  in  no  wise  checked  by  occasional 
starvation,   by  frequent  battle  and  murder,  and  by 

*  I  have  used  the  terms  "  Roman  Catholic  Religion"  and 
"  Roman  Catholics"  generally  in  preference  to  Ihe  terms  *'  Popery" 
and  "  Papist,"  because  1  dislike  nicknames.  The  Roman  Catho- 
lics are  recognised  as  such  by  Act  of  Parliament,  and  have  there- 
fore a  right  to  the  name.  The  use  of  nicknames  seems  to  me  to  be 
neither  good  in  reasoning  nor  in  manners. 


70 


constant  Orange  Ascendancy.     The  question  then 
is,  there  being  Roman  Catholics,  what  are  we  to  do 
with  them  ?   We  have  already  done  two  very  foolish 
things.     We  have  told  them  that  they  cannot  keep 
faith  with  us,  which  is  unjust  and  unwise.     We 
have  not  kept  faith   with   them,   which   is  more 
unjust  and  more  unwise  still.     I  hope  and  believe 
thai  we  are  yet  in  time  to  repair  all  this ;  but  there 
is  no  doubt  that  it  may  be  delayed  until  we  be 
reduced   to  the    granting   it    without  grace   and 
almost  without  condition ;  no  thanks  to  be  reasonably 
claimed  on  the   one  side,  nor  felt  on  the  other. 
We  talk  about  not  being  intimidated,  and  we  feel 
our  valour  rise,  without  allowing  ourselves,  at  the 
same  time,  to  ask  whether  there  is  any  question  of 
personal  danger  to  us  who  live  in  Buckinghamshire, 
and  consequently  any  demand  upon  that  personal 
prowess,  which,  when  there  is  danger,   is    very 
commendable.     The  question  is  not  whether  we 
are  to  ground  arms  before   Counsellor  O'Connel 
or  Bishop  Doyle,  but  whether,  the  first  time  that 
our  tree  is  shaken,  Ireland  is  to  drop  off  into  the  lap 
of  France  or  America.     We  talk  of  their  dema- 
gogues, and  of  their  want  of  gratitude  for  all  that 
w^e  have  done,  and  of  their  offering  no  securities  in 
exchange  for  what  they  ask  us  to  do  ;  I  deprecate 
the  waiting  until  we  may  be  obliged  to  grant  all  that 
thev  ask  to  dema2:oo:ues,  and   without  obtaining 
any  gratitude  or  security  in  return.    Like  the  proud 
American  s:irl  instanced  bv  Dr.  Franklin  in  his  Cor- 
respondence,  '*  who  wished  and  resolved  never  to 


71 


*'  have  anything  to  do  with  a  Parson,  or  a  Presby- 
**  terian,  or  an  Irishman,  and  at  length  found 
"  herself  married  to  an  Irish  Presbyterian  Parson." 
I  believe  that  no  securities  are  necessary,  or 
desirable,  except  that  which  the  measure,  if  spon- 
taneously granted,  would  afford  of  itself.  But  to 
those  who  attach  any  virtue  to  what  are  usually 
called  securities,  I  should  observe  that  two  occa- 
sions have  already  been  lost  of  granting  these 
claims,  coupled  with  what  were  called  securities, 
such  as  never  can  return.  In  1808,  the  late  Duke 
of  Norfolk  and  Lord  Grenville,  in  the  one  house, 
and  Mr.  Ponsonby  and  Mr.  Grattan,  in  the  other, 
were  authorized  by  the  Irish  Catholic  body  to 
propose  a  negative  to  be  vested  in  the  Crown 
upon  the  appointment  of  their  bishops.  Mr.  Per- 
ceval, the  Chancellor,  and  the  Spiritual  Bench,  did 
not  see  the  importance  of  this  opportunity.  It  was 
rejected  ;  the  Irish  were  driven  to  despair  ;  and, 
in  the  same  tomb  with  the  question  of  1808,  lies 
for  ever  buried  the  Veto.  The  same  was  the  fate 
with  what  were  called  the  "  winos"  attached  to  Sir 
Francis  Burdett's  bill  of  last  year.  I  voted  for 
them,  not  for  the  sake  certainly  of  extending  the 
patronage  of  the  Crown  over  a  nevv  body  of  clergy, 
nor  yet  for  the  sake  of  diminishing  the  popular 
character  of  elections  in  Ireland  ;  but  because  Mr. 
OConnel,  and  because  some  of  the  Protestant 
friends  of  the  measure  who  knew  Ireland  the  best, 
recommended  them  ;  and  because  I  believed,  from 


72 

the  language  of  some  who  supported  it  only  on  these 
conditions,  that  they  offered  the  fairest  chance  for 
the  measure  being  carried.     1  voted  for  them  as 
the  price  of  Catholic   emancipation,  for  which  I 
can    scarcely   contemplate  any  Irish  price  that  I 
would  not  pay.     With  the  same  object,  I  would 
vote  for  them  again  ;   but  J  shall  never  again  have 
the  opportunity.      For  these   also,   if  they    were 
thought  of  any  value  as  securities,  the  events  of 
this  year  in  Ireland,  have  shewn  you  that  you  have 
lost   for  ever.       And  the    necessity  of  the  great 
measure  becomes  every  day  more  urgent  and  un- 
avoidable. 

But  I  leave  the  vast,  and  awful,  and  melancholy 
consideration  of  Ireland  (infinitely  too  vast  to  form 
a  mere  incidental  topic),  with  only  one  remark. 
It  requires  not  much  observation  to  see  that  a 
country  so  disorganised,  and  so  unhappy,  has 
been  rendered  thus  by  some  overmastering  error 
in  the  mode  of  ruling  it ;  and  it  requires  not  much 
argument  to  shew  that,  where  civil  rights  are 
unequally  distributed  between  two  great  parties, 
they  cannot  together  form  either  a  free  or  an  united 
empire.  It  would  be  a  solecism  in  language :  it 
is  an  anomaly  in  government. 

I  now  hasten  to  the  close  of  a  statement  which 
has  already  led  me  to  much  greater  length  than  I 
at  first  intended ;  and  would,  if  pursued,  lead  to 
details  far  exceeding  the  utmost  limits  which  can 
give  to  a  letter  any  reasonable  chance  of  its  beino- 

6 


73 

read  by  those  to  whose  judgment,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  your  name,  it  is  addressed.  If  I  am 
deceived  in  the  view  I  have  taken,  it  is  not  for 
want  of  consideration  :  I  trust  it  is  not  for  want  of 
candour.  I  may  have  unnecessarily  stated  facts 
and  arguments  which  most  persons  have  before 
duly  considered ;  but  I  have  wished  to  place  the 
question,  and  my  view  of  it,  on  true  grounds,  even 
with  those  who  have  read  but  little  on  the  subject, 
and  paid  but  little  attention  to  what  are  really  but 
its  first  elements.  Many  points  I  have  very  super- 
ficially noticed,  and  perhaps  too  abruptly  dis- 
missed :  many  I  have  left  entirely  untouched. 
When  I  have  referred  to  authorities,  it  will  be 
found  that  I  have  applied  them  with  fidelity.  I  have 
not  generally  quoted,  because  one  of  my  first 
objects  was  to  compress.  If  I  have  left  any  mate- 
rial part  of  the  case  untouched,  or  in  any  part  not 
succeeded  in  making  myself  understood,  to  any 
questions  stated,  or  objections  urged,  by  those  to 
whom  my  observations  are  addressed  it  is  my 
duty  to  give  my  best  attention.  To  questioners  or 
objectors  without  a  name,  it  is  no  man's  duty  to 
reply. 

I  hope  I  have  not  used  any  expressions,  as  I  am 
sure  I  entertain  no  feelings,  of  offence  to  those 
persons  who  considerately  and  conscientiously 
maintain  opposite  opinions  to  our  own.  We  may 
be  permitted  to  regard  them  with  some  sur- 
prise, as  we  should  their  conclusions  with  regard 


74 


fj 


75 


to  natural  objects,  if  they  viewed  forms  and 
colours  through  a  different  medium  with  ourselves. 
But  opinions  so  formed  are  entitled  to  respect, 
whatever  may  be  the  end  to  which  they  lead.  Nor 
can  I  better  express  my  own  dispositions  towards 
those  with  whom  I  differ  on  this  great  subject, 
than  by  saying  that  I  fervently  hope  they  are 
widely  different  from  those  reported  to  have  been 
expressed  not  long  ago,  on  a  public  occasion,  in 
this  county,  by  a  Minister  of  our  Church.  His 
name  I  forbear  from  mentioning,  because,  where 
it  is  possible  I  may  have  been  misinformed,  I  will 
not  lay  to  the  charge  of  one.  who  may  be  guiltless 
and  incapable  of  it,  an  effusion  equally  incompa- 
tible with  that  mild  spirit  which  it  is  the  duty  of 
his  office  to  inculcate,  and  with  the  manners  of 
that  station  in  society,  in  which  language  is  ex- 
pected to  be  regulated  by  the  terms  of  good  breeding. 
I  am  informed  by  many  witnesses  that,  on  an  occa- 
sion which  any  man,  with  the  advantages  of  taste  or 
feeling,  would  have  perceived  rendered  a  disre- 
spectful allusion  to  the  conduct  of  any  one  of  the 
family  to  which  1  belong  peculiarly  improper,  a 
clergyman  permitted  himself  to  stigmatize  the  sup- 
port which  some  of  its  members  had  always  given 
to  this  question,  as  a  ''  blot  upon  their  scutcheon." 
It  might  have  occurred  to  a  person  of  education 
not  only  that  the  phrase  was  grossly  unbecoming, 
but  that  a//of  whom  he  then  spoke  should,  by  their 
absence,  have  been  piolecled  from  unmannerly  in- 


/ 


\t 


< , 


vective.     A  minister  of  a  Christian  church  might 
have  done  well  to  pause,  when  he  remembered  that 
one  had  to  claim  the  more  sacred  protection  of  the 
tomb.     But  why,  I  have  a  right  to  ask,  why  a 
blot  ?     Have  they,  have  we,  ever  given  violent  ex- 
pression to  feelings  which,  at  different  times,  and 
under  different^circumstances,  we  allowed  it  by 
our  silence  to  be  supposed  that  we  disclaimed?  for 
that  would  have  been  a  blot.     Have  we  ever  given 
that  violent  expression  to  our  feelings  under  cir- 
cumstances that  might  render   us   suspected   of 
having  so  sacrificed  delicacy  and  propriety  to  any 
views  of  local  interest  or  favour?  for  that  might  have 
been  a  blot.      Or  have  we  ever  dishonoured  our 
cause  and  ourselves  by  the  use  of  phrases,  not 
uttered  in  the  unguardedness  of  haste,  or  under 
the    excitement    of  self-defence,   but   cooHy    se- 
lected for  the  wicked  purpose  of  slandering  the 
absent  and  the   dead?   for    that    would    indeed 
have   been   a  blot.      I    will  avail   myself  of  the 
privilege,    which   something   more    than  a   mere 
attack  upon  myself  now  affords  me,  to  tell   that 
reverend   person   that  men    may  give  their   best 
support  to  opinions  opposite  to  his  with  a  scutcheon 
pure  and  unblotted,  and  of  which  no  kinsman  or 
descendant,  although  so  desired  by  a  minister  of 
religion,  need  feel  ashamed.     I  will  also  tell  him 
that  though  the  shame  of  base  adulation  may  be 
forgotten  or  repaired,  the  stain  of  premeditated 
slander  is  ineffaceable,  and  blots  the  surplice  of  the 


M 


'**», 


\l 


76 

priesthood,  from  the  throat  to  the  very  skirt  and 
nethermost  hem.     Oh,  that  his  reverend  brother, 
Mr.   Fisher,  had  been  present  when  he  was  en- 
deavouring, if  I  am  rightly  informed,  to  awaken, 
by  such  means,  a  languid,  and  disgraced,  and  ob- 
solete cry !     He,  doubtless,  would  have  told  him 
that  "  however  some  well-affected  but  timid  minds 
"  may  have  been  agitated  by  this  outrage  on  the 
''common  sense  of  the  people,  it  has  appeared  that 
"the  metropolis,  the  country  in  general,  and  this 
"  district  particularly,  and  much  to  its  credit,  have 
"treated  it   with   deserved    indifference.*"      He 
would  have  told  him  that  one,  as  much  his  superior 
in  clerical  rank,   as  in  gentleness,  modesty,  and 
Christian  charity,  thought  otherwise.     He  might 
have  said,  in  the  words  of  his  own  eloquent  and 
well-deserved  eulogy  on  the  venerable  Bishop  of 
Norwich:     "It  is  the  highest  praise  of  a   right 
"reverend  divine  of  the  present  day,   that  he  has 
"  set  an  example  of  charity  and  moderation,  in  an 
"  address  to  his  brethren  replete  with  sentiments 
"  worthy  of  a  liberal  mind  in  an  enlightened  age  ; 
forming  a  happy  contrast,"  &c.t     But  I  leave  "the 
person  I  have  alluded  to,  if  innocent,  unattacked, 
because  unnamed ;— if  otherwise,  the  memory  of 
my  father  >an   withstand  and   beat  back  such  a 
maligner,   and  I  have  endeavoured  to  shew  that 

*  Rev.  J.  Fisher's  Sermon,  page  14. 
t  Id.  page  16. 


4 


1 1 


^i^ 


77 

the  absent  may  yet  discover  means  of  answering 
for  themselves. 

I  have  endeavoured  to  represent  what  is  called 
Catholic  Emancipation,  on  the  grounds  on  which  it 
first  claimed  my  earnest  wishes  for  its  success.  As 
a  boon  doubly  blessed,  but  shedding  benefits  far 
more  important  on  the  giver  than  on  the  receiver. 
And  here  I  ask  nothing  from  generous  sympathy, 
I  ask  only  from  an  ordinary  sense  of  interest, 
whether  it  be  better  to  maintain  for  a  few  years 
longer  an  anxious,  costly,  and  precarious  system 
of  party  police  over  a  people  mortified,  discon- 
tented, perhaps  ''  wrung  into  undutifulness"  by 
your  trifling  and  cruel  jealousies,  or  to  rally  round 
your  throne,  and  your  standards,  and  your  laws, 
the  undisturbed  and  unqualified  affections  of  many 
millions,  now  unnaturally  thrust  aside  from  among 
the  free  subjects  of  your  empire. 

There  is  but  one  description  of  persons, — I  trust 
they  are  but  few, — to  whom  I  early  alluded,  but 
to  whom  I  have  not  addressed  myself.  Those 
who,  when  they  do  read  the  history  of  mankind, 
read  with  the  most  cautious  partiality  such  pas- 
sages only  as  they  may  confidently  hope  will  assist 
their  already  steadfast  judgment ;  who  look  always 
back,  instead  of  sometimes  looking  forward  and 
around  them,  and  look  back  only  to  distort  both 
precedent  and  example  ;  and,  inverting  the  whole 
course  of  speculation  on  human  character  and 
events,  would  illustrate  the  art  of  government  in 


78 

the  nineteenth  century  by  pompous  reference  to 
some  thousand-times-told  tale  of  feudal  manners 
and  of  barbarous  men.  Such  persons  are  ever 
ready  to  be  the  instruments,  in  any  hands,  of  that 
intolerance,  against  the  imputation  of  which  they 
are  the  first  to  declaim,  because  they  are  the  first 
to  feel  that  the  imputation  is  deserved  ;  ever  ready  to 
justify  the  oppressing  their  fellow-subjects  in  the 
name  of  a  free  constitution,  and  the  persecuting  their 
fellow  Christians  in  the  name  of  a  mild  and  merciful 
religion.  Such  are  they,  who,  on  a  great  subject 
involving,  like  this,  questions  of  the  deepest  im- 
portance, of  the  nicest  deliberation,  perhaps  of  the 
sublimest  morality,  simplify  their  objections  into 
one  senseless,  heartless,  cry,  calculated  only  to  in- 
flame every  passion  which  ought  to  be  soothed  and 
repressed,  and  to  arouse, — what  sometimes  the  most 
foolish  man  may  arouse,  and  the  wisest  cannot 
afterwards  allay  or  control, — a  raging  spirit  of 
political  and  spiritual  animosity.  Of  such  persons, 
if  I  were  constrained  to  address  myself  to  them,  I 
would  ask,  ^' Are  you  Protestants?  The  Protest- 
"antism  you  profess,  is  the  religion  of  Spiritual 
^'  Liberty ;  for  it  claims  for  its  origin  the  right  of 
"  private  judgment,  while  the  Roman  Catholic 
"  church  claims  what,  she  says,  is  the  unerring  au- 
"thority  of  her  Councils.  When  our  Church, 
**  then,  endeavours  to  control  entire  liberty  of 
"conscience,  she  puts  on  the  garments  of  popery, 
*^but  without  its  armour  of  assumed  infallibility. 


79 

"  You  belong  to  a  Churcli  whose  '  duty'  it  is 
"  (in  the  excellent  words  of  an  Address,  within 
'*  these  few  days  presented  to  his  Majesty  by  her 
^'clergy  in  convocation,)  to  vindicate  the  establish-' 
"  ment  in  the  spirit  by  which  it  professes  to  be 
"  governed^  with  temper^  moderation^  and  firmness^ 
*'  seeking  to  conciliate  those  who  may  be  opposed  to 
"  MS,  not  to  exasperate  them;  to  convince,  not 
"  boastfidly  to  triumph  over  them,*  And  when 
"  you  shall  have  read  through  and  through  the 
"  history  of  ecclesiastical  wars  and  persecutions, 
''and  (going  beyond  the  doctrines  of  the  Atheist, 
''Hobbes,  who  pronounced  contention  to  be  only 
*'  the  natural  state  of  man,)  shall  have  almost  suc- 
"  ceeded  in  representing  to  yourselves  Christianity 
*'  as  the  promoter  of  discord  and  violence,  not  as 
"  the  teacher  of  union  and  brotherly  love,  ask 
"  yourselves  what  it  is  that  is  the  subject  at  issue 
"  between  you  and  those  whom  you  revile  and 
''proscribe.  Learn  that  your  difference  from  the 
"  Roman  Catholic  is  on  matters,  on  which,  if  there 
"  be  freedom  to  be  enjoyed  in  this  world,  or  hap- 
"piness  to  be  hoped  for  in  the  next,  it  is  not  only 
"  a  man's  privilege,  but  his  duty,  to  feel  and  act 
for  himself;  that  the  difference  is  a  difference  to 
be  settled  on  the  other  side  the  grave,  w4ien  all 
"the  jargon  of  controversy  sliall  be  no  more,  and 

*  See  Address  of  the  Archbishop,  Bishops,  and  Clergy,  of  the 
Province  of  Canterbury,  in  Convocation  assembled,  presented  to 
His  Majesty  on  Monday,  the  28th  of  last  month. 

1 


(( 


a 


!i  *$  m 


80 


** establishment  and  privilege  shall  have  melted 
''  away  before  a  tribunal  in  the  sight  of  which 
'^  kings,  popes,  and  subjects,  shall  one  day  stand, 
*'  not  as  conflicting  sectaries,  not  claiming  to  be 
"  dealt  with  according  to  their  merits  or  their 
"wisdom,  but  suppliants  to  be  judged  with  mercy, 
"  even  as  they  have  judged. 

''And,  when  you  shall  have  a  little  humbled  the 
*'  pride  of  the  Pharisee  within  you,  look  over  again 
"  the  grounds  you  have  taken,  historical,  political, 
"  and  moral.  Believe  me,  the  subjects  of  your  ge- 
'*  nerahties  against  popery,  (and  by  no  very  logical 
"connexion  in  favour  of  intolerance,)  are  not 

**  Green  and  fresh  in  this  old  world  :" 


u 
« 

a 

a 
« 
a 
it 

<c 

a 


You  are  not  the  first  whom  it  hath  delighted  to 
expatiate  on  the  undisputed  but  irrelevant 
horrors  of  Smithfield  and  St.  Bartholomew's  Day, 
or  to  exhibit  the  hideous  memory  of  the  fiery 
Mary,  (by  strange  perversion  of  example  !)  in 
recommendation  of  a  system  of  religious  bigotry 
and  persecution .  In  all  this  you  are  not  alone 
or  original  :  Lord  George  Gordon  was  before 
you. 

*'  But  yet  wise  and  good  men  have  differed  from 
you ;  and,  when  we  see  Sir  George  Saville,  Mr. 
Burke,  Mr.  Fox,  Mr.  Pitt,  Mr.  Windham,  Mr. 
Grattan,  and  one  of  whom,  laying  nearer  consi- 
derations aside,  I  may  be  allowed  to  speak  as  of  a 
sincere  patriot  and  an  enlightened  statesman,  when 


81 


"  (with  only  one  distinguished  exception  in  talents, 
"  station,  and  integrity,  Mr.  Peel,)  we  see  all  the 
"  most  considerable  pemons  of  all  parties  united  on 
"  this  subject^  you  must  observe  that  the  balance  of 
"  authority  is  somewhat  remarkably  against  you. 
"  Authority,though  not  conclusive  in  our  judgment, 
"  is  sufficient  at  least  to  make  us  pause  before  we 
"  condemn  as  fools,  or  as  worse,  all  those  who  have 
^*  taken  the  most  eager  part  in  behalf  of  this  great 
*'  measure.  It  does  not  appear  to  me  advisable 
"  hastily  to  conclude  that  the  easy  softness  of  Mr. 
**  Canning,  Mr.  Brougham,  and  Mr.  Plunkett,  has 
*'  been  duped  by  the  arts  of  designing  Papists;  that 
"  Sir  Francis  Burdett  has  become  enamoured  of  a 
*'  system  manifestly  incompatible  with  popular 
'*  liberty ;  that  Sir  James  Mackintosh  might  be  more 
"  upon  his  guard,  if  he  were  a  little  further 
*'  acquainted  with  the  modern  history  of  the  world  ; 
"  or  Sir  John  Newport,  if  he  attached  greater  im- 
"  portance  to  the  particular  interests  of  Ireland ; 
"  that  Lord  Grenville  is  a  rash  visionary  innovator; 
"  and  Mr.Wilberforce  no  better  than  he  should  be." 
But  1  cannot  resist  the  conviction  which  I  feel 
that  prejudice  itself,  at  least  the  worst  sort  of  it, 
is  rapidly  giving  way ;  and,  with  it,  by  degrees, 
the  objections  which  some  of  the  best  men  have 
felt,  and  the  clamour  which  some  of  the  worst  have 
been  able  to  excite,  against  a  great  and  glorious 
measure  of  policy,  generosity,  and  justice.  The 
generation   has   but   lately    passed  away   which 


82 


O 


\ 


might  liave  remembered  when  all  those  who  in 
1753  supported  the  bill  for  the  Naturalization  of 
Jews  were  themselves  represented  as  enemies  of 
Christianity  ;  nor  can  we  forget  in  much  later 
times  the  obloquy  so  long  encountered,  and  at 
length  triumphed  over,  by  the  adventurous  and 
unwearied  benevolence  of  Mr.  Wilberforce,  in  that 
immortal  work  in  which  he  bore  so  large  a  part, 
the  Abolition  of  the  African  Slave  Trade. 

In  one  respect,  if  I  knew  no  more  of  them,  I 
should  be  encouraged  to  place  confidence  in  the 
Roman  Catholics.  I  find  that  thev  have  a  re- 
ligion.  Discover  that  a  man  has  a  religion,  and 
you  have  then  an  additional  and  a  powerful  tie  by 
which  his  conscience  may  be  bound.  And  whether 
he  be  a  Jew  who  swears  upon  the  law  of  Moses, 
or  a  Turk  who  swears  upon  the  Koran,  or  a  Hindoo 
who  stretches  out  his  hand  to  the  East,  or  whether 
he  be  a  Catholic  who,  like  ourselves,  kisses  the 
volume  of  our  common  redemption  ;  or  whether  he 
be  one  of  that  moral  and  well-ordered  sect  of 
Christians  whose  simple  affirmation  is  taken  by 
our  courts  as  equivalent  to  an  oath  ;  we  have, 
politically  speaking ^  the  self  same  bond.  In  my 
opinion  it  is  not  wise  so  to  have  framed  your  tests 
as,  admitting  those  who  do  not  believe  at  all,  to 
exclude  those  who  only  believe  a  little  differently 
from  ourselves.  It  is  untrue  to  say  that  these 
are  securities  in  favour  of  the  connexion  between 
church  and  state  ;  because  thev  are  not  tests  of 


^'^., 


83 

conformity  to  the  church.  They  are  only  tests  of 
dissent  from  two  special  tenets  of  another  religion. 
Tests,  not  of  belief,  but  of  disbelief.  If  we  are 
right  in  this  policy,  so  would  other  countries  be 
in  pursuing  the  same  ;  and  then  the  only  universal 
qualification  would  be  universal  unbelief. 

Thus  I  have  endeavoured  to  set  forth  all  the 
grounds  I  desire  to  have  for  the  practical  view  I 
take  of  this  question.  1.  Policy.  2.  Justice. 
3.  Unredeemed  Pledge.  I  have  endeavoured,  by 
appealing  to  the  understandings  of  my  constituents, 
to  justify  my  own  conclusions  ;  and  I  w  ish  to  give 
them  these  as  the  reasons  for  which  I  always  have 
supported,  and,  until  convinced  of  their  fallacy, 
shall  continue  to  support,  the  Catholic  claims. 

Believe  me  ever,  my  dear  Sir  George, 

With  the  greatest  truth,  your  attached  friend, 


December  1826. 


NUGENT. 


t 


P.S. — I  cannot  close  a  letter  necessarily  so  supei*ficial 
as  this,  without  feeling  that  I  owe  it  ^to  those  to  whose 
j  udgment  it  is  addressed,  to  refer  them  to  two  or  three  works 
in  which  those  who  wish  to  make  themselves  masters  of  the 
historical  cases  will  find  it  stated  ably  and  in  full.  In 
truth,  a  competent  judgment  can  hardly  be  formed  upon 
it  by  those  who  are  unacquainted  with  these  works  :  Mr. 
Charles  Butler's  History  of  the  Laws  affecting  the  Roman 
Catholics;  SirH.Parncli's  History  of  the  Penal  Laws;  and 

I 


I 


S4 


our  friend  Archdeacon  Glover's  two  most  able  pamphlets, 
'  published  by  Ridgeway.  I  must  also  take  the  liberty  of 
recommending  the  perusal  of  the  short  but  most  important 
declaration  made  this  year  by  the  Roman  Catholic  titular 
Bishops  of  Ireland,  and  by  the  Vicars  Apostolic  of  Great 
'Britain,  on  the  subject  of  divided  allegiance,  and  the 
other  tenets  ordinarily  object^  to  them;  also  the  declaration 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  nobility  and  gentry  of  England 
and  Scotland  on  the  same  subject;  both  published  by 
Keating.  To  those  who  have  had  the  opportunity  of 
reading  these  works,  the  foregoing  letter  is  indeed 
superfluous. 


FINIS. 


f 


i 


J.  Mtid  C.  Adlard,  Prmtera,  Barth^lomtw  Chte. 


